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Cyrus
(2010)
Directed by
Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass
Review by
Zach Saltz
Posted - 8/1/10
Before audiences of
Cyrus jump to the
reasonable conclusion that
Marisa Tomei
is way too good for John C. Reily or
Jonah Hill (or any man, for
that matter), let’s consider the precedents set by her underwhelming
former cinematic beaus:
Joe Pesci
(My
Cousin Vinny),
William Mapother (In
the Bedroom),
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
(Before the Devil Knows Your Dead),
William H. Macy (Wild Hogs).
This list doesn’t even include
Mel Gibson in
What Women Want,
who lies by telling her he’s gay just so that she can stop bothering
him. Nor does it include her one-episode love affair with
George Costanza,
and we cannot simply excuse her onscreen taste in men by the Seinfeldian
conclusion that her type is uniformly “short, quirky, and bald.”
What is wrong with Tomei? The Brooklyn accent
doesn’t come close to verging into
Rosie Perez or Fran Dresher
territory, and no one questions her jaw-dropping good looks (proof of
this was her always-convincing roles as a prostitute in
The Perez Family
and a stripper in
The Wrestler). The
courtroom scene in
My Cousin Vinny
where she tells off
Lane Smith by exclaiming that
Chevrolet didn’t offer the Bel Air model with a four-barrel carburetor
until 1964 may be the single hottest “Girls shouldn’t know about this
stuff . . . Excuse me while I jizz my pants” moment before the “Chicks
With Guns” video in
Jackie Brown. And how is
she rewarded for this? She goes back to New York with Joe Pesci,
screaming that her biological clock is ticking and she desperately needs
him to boink her. That’s right, she wants Harry-from-Home-Alone-and-Tommy-from-GoodFellas
Joe Pesci to give it to her. That’s why I will always defend
her Oscar win for this role – it takes true acting skill to portray
anyone who actually believes Joe Pesci to be a sex god.
(Side note: This is why I think the
Oscars
of
Marlee Matlin,
Geena Davis,
Holly Hunter,
Mira Sorvino,
and
Halle Berry
were justified. Convincing us that they honestly wanted to have
consensual sex with
William Hurt,
Harvey Keitel,
Woody Allen,
and
Billy Bob
Thornton is a pretty amazing feat.)
In
Cyrus, one of her problems is that,
predictably, Tomei’s character, Molly, finds John C. Reily hot, but her
larger problem is that of her 21-year-old son, the titular Oedipal
Complex-stricken lad played by Jonah Hill. He wants her all to
himself, which under any other Tomei circumstance would not really be a
problem (have you seen how fat he’s gotten?), except that, well, she’s
his mother and this isn’t France. The implication here is not so
much that Cyrus wants to have sex with his mother, but rather that he
wants to mooch off her, and he’s keenly aware that any man who
intervenes will grow weary of his self-absorbed act.
Reily’s character, John, senses that there is
something unusually close about the relationship between his sex
buddy/potential girlfriend and her son (and it goes beyond their dancing
to Cyrus’ techno-remix, entitled “Cyrus The Dance of Isotopes 2 and 3”)
but stays mostly quiet about, except occasional ramblings directed
toward his ex-wife/confidante
Catherine Keener.
First, Cyrus steals his shoes. Then the stakes are raised when
Cyrus announces that he will move out of the house, and John seizes the
opportunity to call his bluff and move in with Molly.
So far, the plot of
Cyrus doesn’t sound too
far removed from Step Brothers,
Mr. Woodcock, or any
Apatow film
(especially given the presence of Reily and Apatow
alums Hill and Keener). Where the Duplass’ movie differs is in its
treatment of its three main characters – they aren’t simply over
exaggerated, laugh-a-second caricatures, but complex, difficult people.
John is a painfully unhappy middle-aged loser, but he genuinely cares
about Molly and, as a byproduct, the annoying kid. Because Cyrus
is played by Jonah Hill, we laugh at him, even though almost nothing of
what he says or does is actually funny. Replace Hill with
Robert Pattinson
and the movie becomes a sober family drama. There aren’t very many
Parent Trap-esque hijinks to be found here because
Cyrus
is more concerned with the honest emotional repercussions of adult
relationships than childish slapstick.
And then there is Tomei, who is luminous. The
character of Molly actually isn’t too far removed from Tomei’s role in
In the Bedroom
– a vulnerable, emotional single
mother who puts her children above anything else. While this makes
her noble, it doesn’t excuse her for being entirely clueless as to the
aims of the men surrounding her. There are two brief scenes in
Cyrus where she is depressed (laying sleepless in bed and flipping
through the TV channels on the couch, respectively) and Reily and Hill
try to console her – but she is inconsolable, not bitter or cold, but
heartbroken. It is in these moments that the audience truly feels
for her; that these two men are the most important parts of her life,
and if she cannot work their problems out, she will bear the guilt and
blame it on herself. One senses this is a chronic pattern of hers
with every man Cyrus has rejected in the past. This is a thankless
role if there ever was one, but Tomei breathes life into it, and however
zany Reily and Hill are, she is the real reason why
Cyrus works –
because as both a mother and lover, she is unilaterally convincing and
sympathy-inducing. Amazingly, I haven’t cared about a movie
character more in 2010.
Two complaints with
Cyrus. The first
is that the Duplass Brothers have indulged themselves so greatly in
their beloved aesthetic (“mumblecore”) that it seriously undermines the
delicate characterizations. No, we don’t need clumsy zooms or
amateur swish pans to express confusion or anxiety on the part of the
characters, or The Limey-inspired dialogue track played over
characters who aren’t actually speaking. What the filmmakers are doing
here is clear enough: exaggerating the discomfort through minimalist,
grainy docu-narrative. But it’s tired, unnecessary. Duplass Brothers:
With a cast this recognizable, you’re not fooling anyone when you try to
convince us this movie was shot for $14.
The other flaw is a “good” flaw, if there is such a
thing: Cyrus
moves too fast. These characters are so
well-drawn and the atmosphere is so entertaining, it’s unfortunate that
the movie ends as early as it does, and we are left with relatively few
scenes with the three main characters together in the same setting.
Therefore, I predict some excellent “deleted scenes” on the
Cyrus DVD. Perhaps some cameos of Joe Pesci getting his shoes stolen by
Cyrus, or William H. Macy getting punched in a portapotty, or Cyrus
walking in on Molly and
Philip Seymour Hoffman having sex and being utterly
repulsed. After seeing Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,
I can’t blame him.
Rating:
|
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