Release Date: 6/18/2010 (Limited)
Cyrus, written and directed by the Duplass Brothers (Baghead, The Puffy Chair) is a quirky dramedy about a divorced guy meeting the woman of his dreams and her unusual 21-year-old son. The film has a Rachel Getting Married style to it, with shaky handheld camerawork and noticeable improvisation, which gives it a very authentic feel. The ensemble cast is very solid and the story is entertaining with several laugh out loud moments. It has some surprising dramatic turns especially by usual straight-up comedy man Jonah Hill, who puts together his most mature performance but the movie belongs to John C. Reilly who is fantastic as always.
Still single seven years after the breakup of his marriage, John played by John C. Reilly, has all but given up on his romantic life. But at the urging of his ex-wife Jamie played by Catherine Keener, John grudgingly agrees to join her and her fiancé Tim at a party. He actually manages to meet someone: the gorgeous and spirited Molly played by Marisa Tomei. The relationship takes off quickly but Molly is oddly hesitant to take the relationship beyond John’s house. Confused, he follows her home and discovers the other man in Molly’s life: her son, Cyrus played by Jonah Hill, the 21-year-old new age musician is his mom’s best friend and shares strange relationship with her which John now has to deal with.
The story is very entertaining but it doesn’t really break any new ground. The director’s style added a nice touch to a simple story. The editing they used for some scenes where the dialogue would be laid over the actors when they weren’t talking was a pretty cool technique. I also really liked that handheld camera which gave the movie a realistic feel to it. Only sometimes did the in and out of focus bother me and take me out of the movie a bit but it wasn’t to distracting.
John C. Reilly is a fantastic dramatic actor but recently his acting skills have been in the comedic department with Step Brothers and Walk Hard. Here he ventures back into dramatic territory throwing in some subtle funny lines and you can’t help but laugh when he’s screaming and dropping f-bombs. Jonah Hill on the other hand is always a comedy man and actually worked with Reilly as his ghost brother in Walk Hard. Here Hill is extremely serious playing a very disturbed boy who is a little bit too much in love with his mother. His facial expressions alone creep the hell out of me. The scenes with just Reilly and Hill are the best of the film. I wonder if Hill has admired Reilly’s career and maybe now we will see him take a wider range of roles. He shows a glimmer of a great actor in this film and there were a couple scenes where Reilly and Hill show a lot of emotion and great chemistry together. Hopefully they team up again in the future. The supporting cast was also solid with Kenner and Tomei putting nice additions to their already solid resumes.
Cyrus is a solid little relationship dramedy and one I recommend everyone to see. Don’t expect a hilarious movie or anything really special as it doesn’t quite get to that MADE status, but do expect to come out of the theater being entertained for an hour and a half.
IMDB: 7.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Moviewiseguys: 7.5/10