{"id":17425,"date":"2021-11-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17425"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:13:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:13:28","slug":"review-cmon-cmon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-cmon-cmon\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: C’mon C’mon<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mike Mills\u2019s C\u2019mon C\u2019mon<\/em> opens with a series of question \u2013 big questions \u2013 about modern life and the future, which protagonist Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), a public radio broadcaster, is posing to kids around the country for a piece. The boilerplate interview ends with \u201cwhat makes you happy,\u201d the biggest question, arguably, and if you\u2019ve seen more than a movie or two, you\u2019ll probably guess that the film which follows will find this man asking some of these questions of himself. Including the last one. Especially the last one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mills is the gifted writer and director of Beginners<\/em> and 20th Century Women<\/em>, and he again presents us with a portrait of a family far more complicated than the typical, nuclear variety. Johnny is unmarried, and has no children, and has felt particularly untethered since his longtime girlfriend left him and his mother died, around the same time, about a year before the story begins. But he has an adult sister, Viv (Gaby Hoffman), who is no longer living with her biopolar husband Paul (Scoot McNairy), making her the primary caregiver for their nine-year-old son, Jesse (Woody Norman). But Paul is having some trouble, and Viv needs to go lend a hand. \u201cSo who\u2019s watching Jesse?\u201d Johnny asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s how \u201cUncle Johnny\u201d ends up comes to L.A. to help out. \u201cHe loves it when I\u2019m not around,\u201d Viv assures him. \u201cYou\u2019ll have so much fun.\u201d But it\u2019s not always that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what we have here is basically a 2020s riff on Kramer vs. Kramer<\/em>, the modern man, unexpectedly pressed into child-rearing, and finding something of himself in the process. Like that film, C\u2019mon C\u2019mon <\/em>occasionally lapses into too-cute\/too-clever territory, but not often; Mills has a keen understanding of how kids\u2019 brains work, the way they create strange little alternate personalities and realities, and an ear for how they communicate those strange connections. He makes the kid \u201cweird\u201d without leaning on lazy quirks of affectations, and Norman, who is quite gifted, deftly captures the big emotions of this age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Phoenix and Hoffman do the same for theirs. When Johnny complains to Viv that he\u2019s not yet used to the whole parenting thing<\/em>, she counters, \u201cI<\/em>\u2019m not used to it. I fucking hate it.\u201d This prompts a long, candid jag about the difficulties of parenting, a scene that rings with so much truth, it may as well be the Liberty Bell. Mills is a parent, Google assures me, but I didn\u2019t really have to check; in scene after scene, he works from an insider\u2019s understanding of how quickly and entirely helplessness can overwhelm you, when you\u2019re in charge of a child, from the little moments of impatience and frustration to the very specific, earth-shattering terror of losing track of a kid, even for just a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So these two fine actors function as both a study in contrasts \u2013 the new \u201cparent\u201d and the long-timer \u2013 using this unexpected common ground to reconnect. Hoffman has gone from a marvelous child actor to an uncommonly effective \u201cgrown-up\u201d; she conveys all of her complicated and painful history in these loaded interactions, the conversations where she\u2019s saying one thing when she clearly means another. It\u2019s a tough relationship to sell, the adult sibling dynamic, and these actors nail it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phoenix gets the showier role, of course \u2013 more screen time, but also much more of a journey, as this period of responsibility ultimately requires him to figure himself out. This isn\u2019t mere pageantry; Mills\u2019s insightful script understands how being in charge of a kid means having to more acutely decipher emotions, and thus, to understand your own. He does so via searching, confessional monologues and increasingly candid phone calls with Viv, where he finds himself re-examining even small, offhand decisions (\u201cI made it into a weird joke. Why\u2019d I do that?\u2019). Too much of this introspection can grate, but Phoenix is clearly invested in this character, and his deadpan delivery proves a good comic weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, C\u2019mon C\u2019mon <\/em>plays a bit stronger in retrospect than it does in the moment. The picture meanders -\u2013 sometimes charmingly, sometimes indulgently. And the pacing is just a little punchy; it runs 108 minutes but feels longer, and not always in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that shagginess pays off by the closing scene, which lands with an emotional wallop. \u201cNobody knows what they\u2019re doing with these kids,\u201d Viv explains. \u201cYou just have to keep doing it.\u201d That\u2019s the kind of truth that makes you forgive a film\u2019s messiness, and though it sounds strange to phrase it so bluntly, C\u2019mon C\u2019mon <\/em>is a movie that made me want to be a better parent \u2013 and a better person. And that\u2019s not nothing. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

“C’mon C’mon” is out Friday in limited release.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n