Climbing Higher Pictures

If you’ve think you’ve got it hard, look no further than John C. Reilly. The man seems to be getting typecast in the loser role, but at least, on occasion, he appears to be having fun with it. Though this comedy doesn’t come out until the middle of the summer, we had a chance to take a look at a near finished cut. Is it comedy gold, or just another awkward social romp? Find out below:

Cyrus Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: C

When John C. Reilly sets out to be an awkward man, he is extremely gifted at it. I don’t think I need to remind anyone of his work in the Academy Award winning adaptation of Chicago, or alongside Will Ferrell in such comedy blockbusters as Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Apparently this is his graduation from second tier comedy force to leading man, after the semi-tragedy that was Dewey Cox. I entered the theater with the understanding that putting Reilly in a room with Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei could only lead to comedy gold. Hill playing the 20 something homeschooled child still living at home, and Reilly as the man who is courting Hill’s mother. As one might imagine, sparks do fly.

The only problem is, they don’t fly very far. Nor are there that many sparks to begin with. The entire first act ends up being an extended and wonderful setup to a story that never really takes off. Reilly’s ex, Catherine Keener, is getting re-married and has become Reilly’s go-to person to talk about relationships with. They get him drunk at a party, something he happens to be far too good at, and that’s where he meets Tomei. You think that the film will head in a direction that brings an emotionally satisfying arc to the characters, despite the severely cringe inducing humor that peppers the opening act. Yet instead of being a character worthy of our sympathies, Tomei quickly becomes the object that the two men are fighting over, losing her depth as a character in the process.

The transition is certainly not seamless, and it’s pretty much at this point that everything starts sliding downhill. Unable to maintain the subtle comedic relationship touches of its opening, the film doesn’t allow itself to switch gears into a more outrageous, and ultimately fulfilling conclusion. Instead, the climax attempts to maintain the same reserved feeling, and therefore never really culminates into anything at all. We’re left a mere 80 minutes older, and without much to show for it.

I’m sure psychology majors will have a lot of fun debating the mount of Freudian ideology displayed by Jonah Hill’s loving son character, as he is both the child and the significant other to his mom. His involvement makes the film both a romantic comedy and a weird breakup movie, drawing parallels where you really wish there weren’t any. Do I really care that the kid creates weird synth music in the living room? No, but it makes for about 3 minutes of the cringe humor that seems to be the movie’s bread and butter. There’s not having a script, and then there’s not having a story, and I’m not really sure which is more to blame here.

For me, Cyrus consistently feels half-assed. Ever since the elevator pitch, I feel like this idea has been doomed to failure, and giving an unsatisfying indie comedy an A-list cast and a major theatrical release is pretty silly if you ask me. There are plenty of moments that work beautifully, especially the interactions between the two men, and the individual scenes feel just as energetic as you’d expect. The problem is that they don’t go anywhere, and it doesn’t matter to the audience what happens either. The sympathy we feel watching is based entirely on the choice of performers, not the material itself, and that’s where I feel the film truly falls flat. This is a great family drama waiting to play itself out, it just never earns its reason to exist in the first place.