Cyrus (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)Cyrus is a "Romantic" Comedy film from the Duplass brothers starring Jonah Hill, John C Reilly and Marisa Tomei. It's a film I had been looking forward to seeing after enjoying the trailer and being intrigued by what appeared to be a brilliant cast in an original idea. But does it deliver?
Still single seven years after the collapse of his marriage, John (Reilly) has given up on romance. Forced by his ex-wife and now best friend to attend a party, he surprises everyone by meeting Molly (Tomei) and the instant chemistry leads to what seems a perfect partner for the lonesome John. That is until he meets Molly's son, Cyrus (Hill), whose relationship with his mother is a touch unconventional and he is definitely not ready to share her with anyone.
Before seeing Cyrus I was on the back of two rom-com screenings of The Switch and Going the Distance, both slightly different tales of relationships and both films I enjoyed with different levels of appreciation. I was kind of expecting a third rom-com scenario in Cyrus but actually found a film where romance and comedy were never really the dominating genre as character and relationship took centre stage and it took me by surprise. It's positively brilliant.Jonah Hill is so good is this film, it's by far his best performance and he keeps growing as an actor as well as a comedic presence. He comes across as a few notches short of being a serial killer but having a surreal childlike calmness to his evil which works so well and is at times hilarious, especially his performance playing his new song to John when they first meet or his long vacant stares at John which just say "I want to kill you", Creepy is not the word.
Marisa Tomei is wonderful, I've not seen her in anything since My Cousin Vinny and she plays the difficult role of the over caring mother and wanting lover so well, it feels natural and believable and worked perfectly. Her chemistry and wonderfully flowing dialogue with John C Reilly helps the film succeed, feel natural and through almost the entire film, not a single line felt scripted, greatly adding to the appeal of the film. Reilly is also in his element, I can't remember a film where he has been this good, offering genuine laughs and an wonderful emotional rivalry with Jonah Hill which must have been so funny to film.Not only is Cyrus darkly funny and incredibly well made, it has a very strong story at its centre, surrounded by excellent and well rounded characters that you will completely invest in, it's a joy and a complete triumph. Cyrus is a film which feels fresh, filmed using the "Mumblecore" style of low budget, improvised script, digital cameras and a lot of talk about relationships, Cyrus benefits from the style as it feels unpredictable and genuine. The Duplass brothers have created a visually interesting film with creative camera movements and sharp focusing on people's expressions that set it apart from any romantic comedy movie I've seen. I'm now looking through the Duplass back catalogue as a new fan.
Cyrus is not going to be to everyone's taste and I'm sure people are going to find it tedious and not full of "gags" like they expected from that big guy from Superbad and the `Shrek' looking guy from Step Brothers. I hope people can understand this is not a quirky rom-com, this is not full of gross out jokes, this is not a vehicle for a pretty actor and a pretty actress to ride the roller coaster of relationships. This is a film about a messed up young adult in a single parent family who has had a very strange upbringing and how mother and son fail at letting new people into their family. It's a film which favours relationships and character examination over a deluge of gags, and it's all the better for it.
I highly recommend Cyrus, more than many films I've seen this year. Gary Phillips
Marisa Tomei: Core & Curves
My Cousin Vinny
In the Bedroom
Step Brothers (Single-Disc Unrated Edition)
Superbad (Unrated Widescreen Edition)
Happy Accidents
The Perez Family


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John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Oscar Winner Marisa Tomei star in this quirky, hilarious story about love, family and cutting the cord. Not-so-recently divorced John (Reilly) thinks he\'s finally found the perfect woman when he meets the sweet and sexy Molly (Tomei). There\'s just one problem – Molly\'s son Cyrus (Hill) clings to his mom like lint on a T-shirt, and he\'s not about to let another man come between them. It\'s one hysterically awkward moment after another as John and Cyrus fight for the right to be Molly\'s #1 man.

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Falling Down (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a powerful film, but I personally don't look at it as some type of social commentary or condemnation of modern society, although it certainly touches on some of the problems that will always exist among human beings. Falling Down may well have a potent effect on anyone watching it, though. It always leaves me feeling really, really weird because it touches on so many things we all have to put up with each day, presents a monster whom I can't help but sympathize with in some degree, provides us with a hero whose own life is rife with undeserved problems, and runs its course atop a strong undercurrent of sadness. Michael Douglas gives one of his better performances as Bill Foster, an unremarkable man who finds his world torn apart and finally just snaps. He has lost his wife and little girl (which is his own fault); he's lost his job, the one thing that made him feel important; he just wants things to be like they used to be. He doesn't want to sit in traffic with no air conditioning or pay almost a dollar for a little can of soda or see plastic surgeons living the life of Riley while he can't even support his little girl. His journey "home" is an extraordinary one, and the kinds of awful people he encounters on the way do nothing to help his mentality. It's hard not to cheer him on when he manages to effect an escape from a couple of gangsters trying to rob him, but acts such as holding a burger joint up just because they refuse to serve him breakfast after lunch time is, obviously, way out there. No matter what terrible things he does, though, I can't get completely past the fact that he earnestly wants to see his little girl and give her a present for her birthday; in a clearly psychotic way, I find this movie somewhat touching, and that only makes the whole experience more depressing than it already is.
Robert Duvall is indeed quite good as the good cop, Prendergast, pursuing this vigilante on his last day before retirement. His life is no dream either, but of course he handles his own problems in a way quite unlike our man Foster does. His wife is clearly disturbed, made frighteningly burdensome and vulnerable by the death of their own little girl and an earlier wounding of her husband on the job. For her benefit, he took a desk job and is forced to put up with a lot of jokes and insults from his fellow cops, including his own boss. Except for his partner, all of the cops in this film are as unfeeling and cruel as some of the shady characters Foster meets up with during his journey home, and that is to me one of the more disturbing aspects of this film.
One of the things I liked most about Falling Down was its attempt to portray Foster as one very disturbed man and not a stand-in for any type of stereotypical vigilante; one character in particular makes this point quite clearly when, discovering that Foster doesn't actually agree with him in his own twisted, stereotypically extremist mindset, he asks the man just what kind of vigilante he is supposed to be. My own thinking is that Falling Down is not meant to be a warning about a group of potential Bill Fosters festering in the midst of society; instead, by showing us what happens to one man, it is warning us to walk carefully on our own journeys and to be careful to keep our tempers in check even when the world seems to be out to get us. At the same time, it doesn't imply that we should roll over and play dead whenever a problem comes our way, using the character of Prendergast to show us that we can and should stand up for ourselves but only in constructive ways. I really have a lot of conflicting emotions about this film, but the one thing I am sure of is that Falling Down is an unforgettable motion picture well worth seeing.

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A man who has lost his job and his marriage takes a walk through the troubled urban landscape of Los Angeles on a hot, destructive day, with a retiring police officer trying to anticipate the next stop.Genre: Feature Film-DramaRating: RRelease Date: 8-FEB-2005Media Type: DVD

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