Cyrus

There is this very small movement in film that has been called Mumblecore. Essentially it is very very very low budget film making where the camera work is very shaky and intimate and the actors typically create the dialog on the spot. Most of the movies involve (That I have seen) involve very articulate characters who just have no idea what they are doing in their lives and like to talk it out with friends. The movies are typically very short, feature very little to no music and to be honest, the movies have a very limited appeal. I have seen 4 or 5 of them at this point(Thanks to Netflix streaming) and have managed to enjoy 2 of them. I mention this because Cyrus was written and directed by a pair of brothers who got started in Mumblecore. And your appreciation of Cyrus might rest on what you think of Mumblecore.

John(John C Reilly) is one of those guys who just cannot seem to get his shit together. 7 years ago he got divorced and it still eats at him. His ex-wife, Jamie(Catherine Keener) still puts up with him and clearly thinks if he could get his act together he could find someone. Jamie is getting married again, and John is not coping well, but Jamie tells him to get out and meet someone and even invites him to a party and gives him Vodka and Red Bull and sets him into the wild. John, trying to be open and vulnerable, opens up far too much to a random girl on a couch. Towards the end of the night as John is peeing into a bush he meets this beautiful, if a bit damaged, Molly(Marisa Tomei) who overheard his earlier rantings to the random couch girl and for some reason she loved the honesty of it. John takes her home and she leaves before morning. John and Molly hit it off, but Molly's refusal to stay the night worries John so one time he follows her. He falls asleep in the car and wakes up the next morning and skulks around her house to discover she has a grown son, Cyrus(Jonah Hill). Cyrus comes off as a very pleasant young man, but something does seem disingenuous about him. Also, Molly and Cyrus have a very co-dependant, borderline creepy relationship. As John and Molly get closer, Cyrus starts to get passive aggressive to destroy the relationship and John can see what is happening, but Molly is oblivious to thinking her son could be anything other than sweet.

Mumblecore with a budget, as it turns out, is kind of sweet. Cyrus does not supply the kind of laughs you are led to believe it will from the trailer or even the reviews. In fact, I would not even really call the movie a comedy. Yes, there are laughs to be found, especially in the awkwardness of the early interactions between Molly, John and Cyrus, but the laughs really take a back seat about half way through. That is not to say the movie is not good, but I went in expecting one thing and did not get that thing. Reilly and Hill are both capable of great laughs and they are funny in the movie, but it is not really laugh out loud kind of humor. It is more of a snicker to yourself kind of humor. The film making is just too intimate to really laugh hysterically. The camera work is too close for us to feel comfortable laughing too much, like the characters will hear us laughing at them and get even more uncomfortable.

Beyond the awkward and uncomfortable laughs, there is this great story being told, a story about trying to find love at over 40, a story about a young man who has no idea how to react to a massive change in his life and a story about a woman who is trying to balance a man and her son. The 3 actors-Reilly, Hill and Tomei- all have great chemistry with the each other and all are totally believable in their roles. Tomei has blossomed into a gorgeously damaged actress who you believe could fall in love with people like Reilly. Reilly is such a wonderful actor and he plays puppy-dog in love quite well. he is subtle here, which works wonders for the Mumblecore style of film making. He is, of course, well adept at playing lovable losers, but in Cyrus, I really rooted for him. I felt him from beginning to end. He was a loser, yes, but I really saw the potential of this man to do something better, if he felt he had something to believe in. Hill, well I have been saying for a little while that I wanted to see Hill tread into the darker sides of comedy. With Cyrus he creates a character who is dark and twisted, but more than anything he is a pathetic and sad character and I thought Hill really "got it." He is funny and he does have the standard Jonah Hill-isms, but there is something deeper lurking beneath the surface.

The final 45 minutes of this movie really turn up the drama and I think the movie is better for it. I think the movie makes the turn at the exact right moment and I think the way it all comes to a head makes perfect sense. I think the showdowns between Hill and Reilly give the movie this sense of urgency and make that Mumblecore style of shooting a movie bearable. The shaky camera work is hit and miss all of the time, but in such a small intimate movie, it becomes even more so. The weird angles and constant bobbing of the camera has a tendency to get overwhelming and entirely too distracting, but in this style of making movies, they are a staple because they lend to the low budget feel of the film. However, one aspect that is quite excellent in this particular movie is the zoom feature of the camera. The camera is zooming in and out at these seemingly random intervals, but they really capture a specific mood, or facial expression, and because the camera zooms quickly in and then quickly out, it acts as almost like a bold print, as in, pay closer attention to that moment. It may be a kind of small detail to some, but for whatever, I caught it in this film and it really enhanced my viewing experience.

I have no idea if this script was written or if it was concocted by the people on set, but Cyrus does have a very natural feel to it. It is awkward and uncomfortable and while never truly rises to laugh out loud comedy, it provides a lot of solid moments. I liked the quiet desperation all of the actors gave in their performances and if Mumblecore with a budget is going to turn out this kind of hybrid of comedy and drama, I am in. It does take the right kind of actors to make something like this project work and here, they lucked out and got 3 people who are wonderfully suited for this and it helps make the movie work pretty well.

Final Grade: B-