Review #240: 'Cyrus' (2010)

John (John C. Reilly) is a desperately lonely man who still clings to his ex-wife Jamie (Catherine Keener), who has just announced she is to re-marry. She forces him to come to a party in order to meet women, and his drunken advances cause only embarrassment. While urinating in the garden, he meets the beautiful Molly (Marisa Tomei) who overheard one of his honest and open ramblings, and the two hit it off. Noticing she repeatedly sneaks off during the night, John follows Molly back to her place one night and comes across her strange son Cyrus (Jonah Hill). He seems pleasant in a strange way at first, but soon it becomes apparent that there's more to Cyrus than meets the eye, and he seems intent on breaking the new couple up.

While the trailers and promotional campaign billed this as a quirky comedy in the vein of Judd Apatow, the film came as a pleasantly different surprise. While it would be easy to mistake this for an Apatow film, it plays more as an indie drama, with some very funny moments. Reilly is one of the finest character actors of his generation, so we know what to expect from him. However, it is Jonah Hill that emerges from this film the best, as he puts in a quite amazing performance - creepy and horrible, tragic and dysfunctional, and conniving and evil. He pulls off a multi-dimensional character with a spectacular ease, which is something I would not expect from the guy who pretends to masturbate into a jar and drink it in the quite frankly brilliant Superbad (2007).

I just hope the advertising campaign doesn't bring in the wrong audience, as this is a film that deserves to be seen. Yes, it is very funny in the laugh-out-loud sense. But it is also tender, moving, highly engaging, and often profoundly moving. I've rarely been so engaged throughout every second of a film's running time. The film plot means it is always in danger of becoming soapy or melodramatic, but instead the film's characters are real, and they avoid the film going in the direction that you would expect it to. If there is a negative, it would be the annoying crash-zoom camera work which seems to be there for no other reason than to cry "this is an indie film!". But if you can see past this minor flaw, this is a beautifully rendered comedy drama.


Directed by: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Starring: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie