Cyrus review

Modern Hollywood is in love with making awkward romance comedies. "Cyrus", written and directed by the Duplass brothers is among the better ones to come around a while. The reason is because it's a performance piece above all and John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei kill in these roles. Reilly plays John, a divorced kind of down on his luck guy who goes to a party after being convinced by his ex-wife (Catherine Keener, yet another great actress in the picture). While there he makes an ass of himself, gets more drunk and more depressed before meeting Molly (Tomei). They end up really connecting and falling hard for one another. Slowly though John starts noticing weird things about Molly's actions. Eventually he meets the reason, Cyrus.

Jonah Hill is known for being strictly the fat, funny kid ala' about a dozen movies. Here he actually managed to be funny, sympathetic, creepy and dramatic. It's perhaps a performance that deserves some heavy thought for awards season for it's subtly and success. Cyrus is simply put a weird kid/guy. He's in his early twenties and his relationship with his mother is much closer to that of roommates than to mother and child; which wouldn't be weird as shit unless it didn't involve things like using the toilet while she's in the shower singing. But one thing is known about Cyrus pretty quickly and that's he wants John out of Molly and his life. The why is pretty easy to figure out all things considered, but there's much more self-revelatory things surrounding it.

The Duplass brothers work has always left me a bit off center. "My Puffy Chair" aka the movie myspace sold, was a cute and funny little picture, but I never came close to loving it. They followed it up with "Baghead", a qusi-comedy, thriller about people with bags of their head. The problem was that it was neither funny nor suspenseful just annoying and stupid; which is a shame because I loved the trailer and the idea (to a certain extent). So "Cyrus" is by far their best and most satisfying work to date. It's not a straight comedy or drama, but the very definition of the dramedy genre. They pulled together these great talents and used them very wisely and made it feel much more realistic than atypical rom-com shamaltz. We often forget that John C. Reilly IS NOT a comedian. Despite starring in several big name comedies in the last ten years, he's a hardcore dramatic actor that's simply put, very fucking versatile. I'll always love his work with Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese; hell he's one of my favorite characters in "Gangs of New York". With "Cyrus" it was like getting a little bit of the new and old Reilly in one package.

Tomei is an actress that honestly took me a while to really get a read on. When I saw Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" though... wow. I mean yeah the hooker/stripper with a heart has been done several times and will be done several more, but damn it all if she doesn't work it like it's a fresh concept. She's very likable and seems to have a great wit and sense of timing. On the physical side she's also an actress that's very easy on the eyes, but not phony looking. She looks like everyday people and for me that's always a bit more attractive than the people who look like they get pampered day in and day out.

When it's all said and done "Cyrus" is the kind of funny, sweet and (mostly) realistic piece of been wanting to see again. It's not 100% perfect and it's damn sure not something everybody is going to love or like, but for me it's that kick in the ass that rom-coms have needed for a while.