Most filmgoing audiences saw John C Reilly most recently as a foil for Will Ferrell in the 2008 comedy Step Brothers. It told the story of two overgrown man-children who were thrust into a shared living situation and consequently engage in a war of words and misdeeds due to their selfish discomfort with no longer being the center of their individual universes. Cyrus tells exactly the same story, yet manages to be a completely different filmgoing experience than it’s more mainstream predecessor. Made by Jay and Mark Duplass, big names in the mumblecore genre of low budget, loosely scripted, naturalist filmmaking, Cyrus has a subtlety and grounded realism that today’s mainstream comedies largely lack. Cyrus relies on heart and dramatic weight rather than just pure absurdism to drive its engine. It falls closer to the Judd Apatow side of the successful modern comedy spectrum than it does the Adam McKay side; but it adds an underground, indie grittiness that sets it apart from anything else out there.
John (Reilly) got divorced from his ex wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) seven years ago, but still hasn’t managed to get himself back on his feet. He lives in a one-bedroom apartment, he only works sporadically, and his social life is almost non-existent. Jamie, deciding that she’s had quite enough of his wallowing, forces him to come out to a house party and mingle with the single ladies. Seeing as John is an awkward, desperate goon, things don’t really go well until he meets a woman named Molly (Marissa Tomei) while peeing in the bushes. While the other ladies at the party look at John with disgust, Molly gives him a knowing smirk, when the others turn tail and run away from him, Molly follows after him to see what he’s up to. Love is in the air! Things go along swimmingly for the first couple days of their courtship, but eventually Molly’s sudden departures and guarded demeanor get the better of John’s curiosity and he follows her home to see what she’s hiding. What she’s hiding turns out to be an eccentric, still-at-home adult son named Cyrus (Jonah Hill). Despite Molly’s reservations about the two meeting, Cyrus invites John in, asks him to stay for dinner, and the two get to know each other and start off on great footing. John couldn’t be more relieved with the situation, except, why are his shoes missing the next morning?
And thus begins the game of chess between Cyrus, an overindulged momma’s boy who doesn’t intend on sharing Molly with anyone, and John, a lonely, desperate man who doesn’t want to give up on what might very well be his last chance at love and happiness. The way the antagonistic relationship between the two characters unfolds and escalates is masterful. While most comedies would have the two characters declare all out war with each other in order to milk maximum hilarity out of the situation, Cyrus always plays its cards close to the vest. Its characters aren’t just psychotic caricatures like most modern comedies, they’re real, complex people who are guided by actual motivations and experience authentic feeling emotions. The film never lets the audience in on when a character is lying or why. Cyrus declares that he’s going to move out now that Molly is dating John. Is it a ploy to make John appear to be a villain, or does he really feel a pull toward branching out and becoming his own man? Cyrus experiences crippling panic attacks and John says that he has been through the same thing and the best thing Cyrus can do would be to push through them and continue to try and make it on his own out in the world. Does John really empathize with what Cyrus is going through, or is he just trying to get rid of him? The answers aren’t given to us right away, it’s left up to us to explore things further and decide what we believe; and in the end those answers might turn out to be a mixture of those possible motivations rather than a black and white matter. This approach lends a tension and complexity to a plot that would have been played for nothing but laughs in a film like Step Brothers.
These back and forth machinations between John and Cyrus were so well constructed and able to build suspense that I found watching their relationship play out to be a much more edge of your seat type experience than any horror film that I’ve seen in quite some time. Similar to something like the British version of The Office, Cyrus is able to both be hilarious and also make you feel uncomfortable by putting you in the middle of it’s character’s tense, awkward interactions. One minute you’re cringing, and the next you’re belly laughing; it makes for a rather visceral filmgoing experience. At times the film can seem to get away from itself. A character can behave in a way that’s hard to believe, or an awkward situation will go on longer than you can imagine it ever being put up with in reality. Liberties like this are necessary, I suppose, for comedic effect, but Cyrus never asks you to suspend your disbelief for long. It pushes the limits of what’s believable to be entertaining, but it always reels things back in enough to keep you engaged.
After a while, Cyrus’ stubborn refusal to accept John and his over the top efforts at getting rid of him are clearly too much to overcome. Initially you believe in John trying to make the best of the situation, because he’s so desperate to make things work out, but after a while the triangle of relationships between the three main characters becomes so hopeless and destructive that you don’t understand why John would still be hanging in there. You want to reach in to the screen and shake him for not just telling Molly what’s going on and explaining that he has to walk away from the relationship until her and her son work out their issues. It takes a bit longer than you would like, but this moment happens. Eventually, after some admittedly hilarious though somewhat unbelievable interactions, John does what’s right and mature. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a character in a Hollywood film, let a lone a comedy, do what’s right and mature. Instead it’s always what’s dramatic or romantic. By being able to always walk that fine line between comedy and authentic feeling drama, Cyrus goes a long way toward making its characters likable and relatable.
Tomei’s character is handled in similar fashion. At the beginning of her romance with John, it’s very hard to believe that someone as attractive as Molly would pursue a relationship with someone as awkward and ogre-like as John. You begin to feel like you’re watching one of those typical escapist films where the awkward nerd gets the perfect girl just because it’s nice. When you meet Cyrus her motivation becomes clear and you start to accept. Her everyday life consists of little more than caring for an overgrown baby. Her son is stunted and needy, just like John in the beginning of the film. It starts to make sense that she would seek out what she’s used to, and that John might have seemed like a perfect fit to her damaged psyche. And make no mistake; Molly is damaged. Nobody could indulge and coddle an adult son like she does Cyrus without having some serious issues that need to be dealt with. Their situation is at first played for laughs, but after a while becomes too ridiculous and too unhealthy to continue to be cute. You reach a point where you want to give up on the characters, but before that can happen they break down, they admit that they have problems, and they try to do what’s right to help themselves. A typical comedy would keep up with the insanity until the very end where it went for the quick fix, and then everyone would be perfect. Cyrus is never so stupid or insulting. It’s messy and complex, just like its characters.
And the most complex of the characters is that of Cyrus himself. His relationship with his mother is unique to say the least. Their closeness can be downright creepy, but at times can seem special and endearing. The first big moment where you really start to question what’s going on comes when Cyrus casually walks into a bathroom where his mother is showering. John is hilariously astounded and uncomfortable, and so are you as the audience. The tension comes from the ambiguity of the film’s tone. Is it really attempting to be realist, or is it playing toward farce? You’re always kept guessing at both the film’s and the character’s intentions. After a while, it becomes clear that Cyrus is a The Good Son level sociopath, and you never know whether you should really be laughing at what he does or if you should find it disturbing. I suppose as long as you’re reacting, and as long as you’re buying into what the film is giving you, it doesn’t really matter. Cyrus is a character that should be completely reprehensible; he’s selfish, he’s manipulative, he’s got an Elektra complex; but he is also clearly in pain. He realizes that he is manic and broken, he doesn’t know how to deal with it, and he’s scared at the way his behavior is destroying everything around him. Never is he an outright villain, just a prick. Jonah Hill absolutely kills it in the role. He’s funny, restrained, but still able to project underlying pain. Nothing that he’s done to this point has pointed to the potential for dramatic acting he has quite like this film. I hope a lot of talented filmmakers see this, take notice, and give him the opportunity to continue to tackle meatier roles in the future.
Stylistically, Cyrus is able to separate itself from the rest of the pack as well. While the camera work isn’t quite as herky-jerky as the other Duplass brothers’ films I’ve seen (which can probably be explained by cinematographer Jas Shelton being added to their crew), it remains very loose and documentary feeling. Sudden zooms give you the feeling of watching a home video, dialogue scenes are pulled in a bit too close, making you at times uncomfortably near intimate situations. Several of the dialogue scenes are presented in an interesting, unique way. Dialogue plays over non-corresponding visuals. You hear part of a dinner where secrets are being confessed, but are shown another point where a laugh is being shared. It’s able to give a sense of passing time without resorting to a more traditional looking montage scene. It gives a sense that there’s more going on than we’re being shown, but doesn’t feel like the short cut to intimacy that other, more mainstream romantic comedies can fall victim to employing. The score of the film, composed by Michael Andrews, is very fitting to the material. It’s not only beautiful, but it’s also subtle, sparse, and used very appropriately. It’s never manipulative or leading; it’s meant to accompany a scene rather than overpower it. It’s the kind of music that helps add layers to the experience of a film, but might not be noticed by most casual filmgoers. In a way I think that scores like these can be much more difficult to make than the bombastic, emotional anthems of epic blockbusters. They take a truly refined, artist’s touch.
Having seen the Duplass’ previous two features The Puffy Chair and Baghead, I would venture to guess that Cyrus was a much more tightly scripted film; an attempt at better fitting into the system with their first studio backed film. Those films seemed less structured, less rehearsed, the dialogue so naturalistic that it oftentimes became mundane. Cyrus, while still maintaining the aesthetic of their previous work, feels much more crafted. It builds suspense, it develops its characters in intricate ways, there’s hilarious one-liners and rapid-fire dialogue. After attending a post film Q&A with John C Reilly, it became clear that I would have guessed wrong. He said that the scripting and the blocking of the scenes was very loose, almost completely improvised. He gave most of the credit for the crafted feel of the story to the film’s editor Jay Deuby, who was able to take the myriad material they shot and craft a cohesive, authored feeling story. If what he said is true, I would also have to give a lot of credit to Reilly himself and the other actors. Cyrus is the Duplass brother’s best, most satisfying film. While I wouldn’t doubt the accomplishments of Deuby, or downplay the massive amount of work required in editing a mostly improvised film; I would say that the difference between this film and their previous efforts are the intelligent, veteran actors involved in the project. Without Reilly, Tomei, and Hill having strong ideas about who their characters were and where they wanted them to go, Cyrus could ever have been as successful as it is.
Cyrus
Cyrus [Blu-ray]
