CYRUS review

In "Cyrus", John C. Reilly stars as a loveable shlub who engages in a silent war with his new girlfriend's (Marisa Tomei) repressed grown-up son (Jonah Hill). If you think that sounds like a recipe for guns-out, over-the-top comedy, I don't blame you. Thanks in part to Judd Apatow, both Reilly and Hill have experienced laugh-based career surges in last five or so years. "Cyrus", however, is not that film. While it IS funny, it is at least equally as dramatic, (sometimes displaying both qualities simultaneously) and fully charged with recognizable human idiosyncrasies. From quickly rising indy film hot shots Jay and Mark Duplass, "Cyrus" (named after Hill's character) is a mostly satisfying and sometimes painful look into the lengths one man will go to land the perfect woman, and another will go to maintain his sheltered status quo with said woman.
The woman in question is Molly, played by the always-great Marisa Tomei. Molly is one of those uber-available, smart, funny, and attractive every-women who seem to only exist in movies. From the early moment when Molly rescues John (the character's name as well as the lead actor's - convenient and confusing!) from a bit of potentially reputation-killing drunken karaoke at a house party, we have no trouble understanding why he would fight so adamantly to hold onto her. Likewise, we can't help but sympathize with Cyrus' codependent cling to her as their single-mom/son relationship is revealed to be more of a freewheeling buddy-buddy bond. She encourages him in his awkward electronica/synthesizer compositions as they also collectively pursue amateur art/nature photography. While this dynamic may strike us as odd or perhaps unsettling, for Cyrus, it is his comfortable reality - a ground he must instinctively hold. He begins his passive aggressive assault by stealing John's shoes - a weird transgression that while never fully explained, does in a strange way inform the viewer of Cyrus' unspoken state of mind.

The Duplass brothers do a respectable job of transferring their indy film "mumblecore" aesthetic to a slightly larger, mini-major (Fox Searchlight) scale. It is, in fact, a more grounded film than their previous effort, 2008's bizarrely amusing "Baghead". But for my money, their herky-jerky camera zooms remain distracting, and their collective storytelling prowess has only marginally increased with age and experience. "Cyrus" shares a lot thematically with Noah Baumbach's under-seen gem "Greenberg" from earlier this year, a film that actually featured Mark Duplass in a supporting role. Of the two low budget, character driven, star-fueled, early-midlife crisis films, "Greenberg" is the superior effort, but "Cyrus" is certainly worth a look. The heartfelt and touchingly off-kilter performances of all three leads strike a chord, more than making up for any occasional lack of narrative focus on behalf of the filmmakers. So find your indy film shoes, and try to catch "Cyrus" - at least before he steals them.

- Jim Tudor