Reviewed after the jump.There’s nothing to really dislike about Cyrus. It looked like a dark comedy in the previews and that’s exactly what it was. Funny fatman Jonah Hill is hilariously deadpan as the title character, a creepy, near-Aspergian man-child. Almost without exception, it was Hill’s cringe-inducing way of violating social propriety that made me laugh in this movie. That’s not to say John C. Reilly as John the emotionally over-open divorcee boyfriend and Marisa Tomei as Molly the permissive and manipulated mom of Cyrus and John’s girlfriend fall by the wayside; I think this movie was one of Reilly’s best roles and Tomei was well-cast, too. The troubling thing is that much as I enjoyed Cyrus, I caught myself checking my watch twice in this 92-minute film–something was missing.
For one thing, Cyrus seemed like one of those overly psychoanalytical movies written by a screenwriter who probably spends too much time in therapy and not enough time connecting with the world outside of Hollywood. These characters seemed more conversant with the DSM IV than the daily paper. John’s emotional openness is implicitly cast as the product of therapy surrounding the breakdown of his marriage, but even still it seems overdone and unbelievable. Worse yet is that it’s John’s in vino veritas, avert-your-eyes honesty at a party that we are told gives the still-fetching Molly a crush on homely-as-they-come John. It’s not often that you get a chance to soup up Hollywood’s hot girls with fugly dudes unreality problem by making the hot girl like the fugly dude for his social awkwardness.
Possibly my biggest gripe with Cyrus is the directors’ (yes, plural–the brothers Duplass) infatuation with hand-held cameras and gimmicky conversation shots. I’m not the sort of person who got dizzy from bouncy cameras in Blair Witch. I generally like the opportunities digital film-making has opened up for hand-held shooting–cinema verite and all that jazz. But this movie’s use of the technique was excessive. It’s not just that cameras are bobbing up and down, it’s that the zoom is haphazardly being adjusted within shots. I guess some might find the experience more truthful. For me, it was just annoying.
With some of the one-on-one conversation scenes, the camera focuses on a character’s still face as voiceover begins to roll. Sometimes the still would eventually animate, other times it didn’t. It just seemed to be a case of a director trying to be different for the sake of it. There are some new techniques, like Robert Altman’s method of incorporating side conversations and background noise into his conversation scenes, that add to cinema. Then there are other techniques like this one that seem neutral if not counterproductive. By going from action to still to action, the directors actively drew my attention away from the conversation and towards their gimmick.
One other thing I didn’t like is that much as I’m willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a film, this movie’s near-total failure to explain how the main characters make money bugged me. Keep in mind that Cyrus is set in expensive Los Angeles. John is a freelance editor who almost never works, yet somehow either owns or rents a home by himself and has a new car. Molly’s occupation is never mentioned. Whatever it is, there are only two instances of her being absent from the action and explained as her being at work by the screenplay. She also tells us that she spends a few hours a day with Cyrus at Elysian Park, taking photos for his collection. Yet she seems to own a car, a cute bungalow and a ton of pricey audio-visual equipment for Cyrus the amateur musician. I guess in John’s case, we might be able to assume that he is very well-paid for his editing work or that he gets alimony from his ex-wife and co-editor Catherine Keener. But Molly was never married. Maybe she’s the world’s most mediocre trust fund baby?
In addition to these glaring problems, I disliked the aspartame ending of the movie. I say aspartame because it’s sort of a new age take on the classic saccharine ending. Whatever the name, the flavor is still off-putting. But all this being said, Cyrus wasn’t a bad way to spend an hour and a half. I didn’t walk away feeling that I’d wasted my time. It didn’t require too much emotional investment. Those things alone already elevated it above the first two discs of Berlin Alexanderplatz, for example. So if you don’t mind imperfection, you could do much worse than Cyrus.
Star rating: 3.5 out of 5
Good review! The Blair Witch Project DID make me dizzy, but I didn’t find the handheld cameras so bad here. However, it also bugged me not knowing what Molly’s job was, and it definitely seemed weird that John worked so little. Overall I enjoyed the film, though.
Susan,
The good thing about the zoom-tinkering in this film was that it was nearly all at the beginning. I remember shaking my head in disbelief through the first few scenes.
The job stuff could be seen as nitpicking, I guess, and maybe it was an intentional choice by the filmmakers to keep some sort of air of mystery going. It wasn’t a choice that I liked, though. This was a realist film and for it to depart from realism so bizarrely on the characters’ jobs was upsetting.
But like you said, it still wasn’t a bad movie. Thanks for reading!