(Long Island, N.Y.) Cyrus is a new comedy written and directed by brothers Jay and Mark Duplass. It’s a small, rather intimate movie and as usual for an off-beat, independently-made movie of this type, the marketing guys in charge of pushing it emphasized the “ha-ha’s” in its advertising far more than the “boo-hoo’s.” As a result, just like with 2009’s (very) black comedy, Observe and Report, I went into the theater expecting one type of movie and got
another. It’s not entirely jarring – Cyrus isn’t nearly as dark as Observe and Report turned out to be – but it still contains it’s fair share of heartache and drama, effectively blended with moderate doses of humor.
John C. Reilly is John, a guy dumped by his wife (played by Catherine Keener) seven years ago who doesn’t appear to have had even one date since then. He’s still friends with the ex (you get the feeling she still tolerates him purely out of pity), and often intrudes upon her and her new fiancee for advice on his barren love life. John, middle-aged, out-of-shape, and somewhat unattractive, finally meets a woman named Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. Molly seems instantly drawn to John, despite the fact that A) she’s so much better-looking than him that I thought she might be a prostitute secretly hired for him by a friend as a favor, and B) he’s peeing in the bushes when they first meet.
John and Molly begin a whirlwind romance, but there’s one problem: Molly’s 22 year-old son, Cyrus. At first, things between John and Cyrus seem friendly enough, albeit awkward and uncomfortable. But soon Cyrus, who enjoys an incredibly close relationship with his mother, begins to feel threatened and starts to undermine and eventually sabotage the relationship between Molly and John. Despite appearing to be a complete buffoon John picks up on this, and not wanting to lose what he has with Molly, he starts a cloak-and-dagger battle with the cunning Cyrus over the woman he loves.
Cyrus is an odd duck, cinematically speaking. In some ways it’s amateurishly made, shot on location and exclusively using hand-held cameras operated by folks a little too trigger-happy on the zoom buttons. It’s like they were obsessed with the documentary-style film-making used on the Fox TV series The Shield, but missed the point; the cameras in Cyrus tend to harshly pan and zoom in and out on characters and objects almost randomly, whereas The Shield used this technique more
subtly, just to punctuate dialogue or movement. The camera work in Cyrus isn’t horrible, mind you, but it is distracting at times.
Also, the story is as simple as they come and doesn’t feel nearly as fleshed out as it could have been. Once John and Cyrus make their combative intentions clear to one another, you expect the s-word to really hit the fan, but…it doesn’t. Yes, tempers eventually boil over and the two have their big throw-down, but there’s none of the cat-and-mouse competition between them that you’d expect leading up to it. It’s all talk and no follow through.
Frankly, Cyrus’ success as a film relies solely on the strengths of its actors; if the film was populated with all no-names, it probably wouldn’t be getting half the buzz it currently is. John C. Reilly has really made me take notice of his skills as of late…they guy is far more talented and versatile than I ever suspected. He impressed the hell out of me with his work on 2009’s somewhat average Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, showing that he can actually melt into a semi-serious role. While Cyrus is more of a return to comedic form for him, Reilly still manages to display some subtle, genuine emotion between the laughs.
Superbad’s Jonah Hill is solid as the unbalanced and manipulative Cyrus, playing him as oddly quiet and monotone most of the time, which makes his eventual outbursts all the more effective when they happen. And as usual, Marisa Tomei is funny and charming. She also brings an interesting level of depth as a mother seemingly dependent on her relationship with her eccentric son, and this aspect of her character manages to tug on the ol’ heartstrings later in the film.
So, if you’re in the mood to see a uneven-yet-quirky indie-style movie with a few big-name actors slumming it for a good cause, Cyrus should fill that need quite nicely.
