“Cyrus” is the new film by indie filmmaker Jay Duplass (Bag head) and it is also the name of the title character, played by Jonah Hill. The film centers on John (John C. Reilly), a recently divorced man who has become an emotional vacuum since his wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) left him 7 years ago. He is not social and kind of a slob. Yet Jamie still does care about John and does her best to help him get out of the house and meet people. She invites him to a party in hopes that he will meet a nice woman. In one of the film’s best moments John consumes a little too much vodka & Red bull while he is trying to talk to women. With each failed pick up attempt, he downs another drink. After way too many drinks, he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) who is really drawn to John’s drunken honesty. Molly flirts with John a bit and goes home with him.
After the second night together, John is curious about why Molly leaves in the middle of the night instead of spending the night over without giving him an explanation, so he follows her, and learns her secret, which comes in the form of her 21 year old son Cyrus. Cyrus and Molly have a very bizarre relationship and John can see something is wrong with this picture pretty much right away. He is not sure if it’s just in his head or if there is something really wrong here. Cyrus does not want to share his mother and he keeps a very tight grip on her by using manipulation. Once John realizes that it’s not in his head and Cyrus is really trying to break up their relationship, John decides to confront him. Now it’s a full on battle of wits.
John C. Reilly does a really good job at bringing out John’s fears of being alone or being hurt again. It’s something that most of us can relate to. Jonah Hill is quite a bit more serious here than has been in the past though he still gives a convincing performance of a troubled young man whose problems may have come from the way Molly raised him. Marissa Tomei is terrific as Molly. She is really torn between the 2 men in her life. She is blind to the fact that her relationship with Cyrus is unhealthy and is not allowing her to be happy.
My complaint with the film is the director’s choice to do this odd zoom trick with the camera. In quite a few scenes, the camera will zoom in on people and zoom out and get kind of jerky. I am guessing it is to give the film a more documentary feel, but it does not belong in this film. The good news is that you do get used to it.
This has been a pretty terrible summer for movies in general and it’s nice to see an actual comedy out there that is funny. This is not your typical big budget summer comedy. This is a very small film with some great performances and some really good laughs. Go spend some time with Cyrus.
By Marc Ferman
