a SIFF 2010 review
Funny Cyrus a Darkly Acerbic Hit
John (John C. Reilly) is a good enough guy. He’s got a successful career, is great friends with his ex-wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) and seems to more or less have it all pretty much together. Except for the fact that he doesn’t, not in the least, and as great as his façade can sometimes be he’s managed to let himself become a big depressive blob mess with no desire to clean up his act.
Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei and John C. Reilly in Cyrus © Fox Searchlight Pictures
Until he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei), that is. She finds him funny. She finds him charming. She doesn’t mind he’s a little bit overweight and sometimes an occasional slob. She likes him for who and what he is, and if he can’t get things together after managing to capture the attentions of someone like her than more than likely he never will.
Then he meets her college age musician son Cyrus (Jonah Hill). Mother and child have such an intimate, almost inappropriate relationship John is caught completely off guard. Worse, the 22-year-old is refusing to allow another to come between them, Cyrus doing everything he can to undermine the pair’s burgeoning relationship. But John has got his second wind now, Molly the type of woman a guy should fight for, and to say he’s not going to do just that and then some would be the understatement of the entire year.
Jay and Mark Duplass, the minds behind the delightful low budget winners The Puffy Chair and Baghead, make the jump to the (semi) major studios with their new Fox Searchlight release Cyrus. Thankfully an increase in both star wattage and finances has not distracted the brothers one single bit, their darkly acerbic comedy one of the better – and funnier – motion pictures I’ve had the delight to view this year.
What I love about the duo’s efforts is just how fearless they are. They have an innate ability to find the humor in even the darkest situations, and no matter how bad things get or how heinous the choices a character might make are there is still something comical to be found amidst the ennui. The pair know that light can always be found inside the darkness, and even when taken to the absurd (and maybe even the hurtful) a joke can have the dual effect of lightening the tone whilst also sharpening the impact.
That is exactly how it is here. Cyrus goes into some pretty dark and twisted territory, and some of the gags almost feel as if they are bordering on the inappropriate. But the louder the laughter the more effective the Duplass’ points become, everything going on making each of the three main characters more three dimensional and increasingly worthy of caring about.
Hill is just getting better and better each time out. Internet chatter about his girth aside, his performances in both this and Get Him to the Greek are truly quite excellent. In this case he’s saddled with a character who should be absolutely detestable. By and large audiences would have every right to hate this guy, the way his subterfuge sabotages John’s emotional rebirth and kills his mother’s chances at love downright despicable.
Yet the way Hill plays him Cyrus is a lost soul so used to be cared for by Molly he hasn’t the first clue how to react when their close-knit bond is even slightly compromised. As the film progresses, that pity twists into sadness, and the worse the young adult acts the more I kept hoping he’d somehow find his way to individual confidence and redemption. It is a great performance from an up and coming actor who has quickly proven himself to be much more than a one-trick pony, and if he keeps getting rolls as good as this I foresee calling myself a fan far into the future.
It almost goes without saying that both Reilly and Tomei match him, while Keener adds delicately effervescent support as a fourth player in the puzzle with more at stake than she can possible at the onset know. All slide right into their respective characters with invisible ease, and as familiar as all three are they still manage to practically disappear into their rolls with virtuoso simplicity.
The film is a tad static from time to time, the visual compositions the brothers come up with bordering on the lazy side. The pacing, like both of their previous efforts, can also be a bit haphazard, and at even a brisk 90 minutes there are a couple of bits that felt to me a bit more padded than they needed to be.
But as complaints go those are it. The movie is full of a flurry of great gags both visual and verbal, all of it anchored by a wonderfully self-assured script that boldly goes right for the jugular right from the start. The acting is uniformly excellent and there are a scene of such extreme hilarity just thinking about them again now has got me audibly chuckling even though I’m trying to type. Cyrus is a hit, and on top of that it’s also the best effort from Jay and Mark Duplass yet.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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