Cyrus
On a starry Friday night, my girlfriend and I decided to go to the Upper East Side in New York City, where romantic comedy Cyrus was playing. We had the opportunity to be at one of only four theaters in the United States that was showing this film. It was a pleasant surprise and a treasure of sorts. It was clever when it needed to be and provided genuine, side-splitting conflict that is missing from so many comedies today. Better yet, directors Mark and Jay Duplass found the perfect stars to align. The casting choices for every role were simply phenomenal. The camera angles were different, the dialogue was clearly improvised at times and it genuinely seemed like a breath of fresh air. It was the much needed flavor that Hollywood needed.
The film is centered upon John (John C. Reilly), a depressed freelance film editor who has just learned that his ex-wife turned best friend (Catherine Keener) is remarrying. Although it’s been seven years, he gags that it still hits him hard. She encourages him to come to a party with her and her fiancée (Matt Walsh). Although reluctant, John eventually complies. He meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at the party and despite his goofball appearance and personality, she finds him interesting. They begin seeing each other on a regular basis, but she continually leaves his home in the middle of the night. After stalking Molly to her house in a moment of insecurity, John learns that Molly has an overbearing son, 22-year-old Cyrus (Jonah Hill), who’s clever and mature but is in all aspects a mama’s boy. The fun begins.
Jonah Hill was the undisputed star of the film. His wide eyed stares and awkward moments as well as his calm but sneaky demeanor continue to cement him as one of the centerpieces of the comedy genre in Hollywood today. The dissention between Cyrus and John was mainly fueled by Hill. He just came off as a genuine, complete weirdo in every sense of the word. It was almost as the audience was itching just to see what odd thing he would do next. I was continually looking over to my girlfriend just to laugh at the pure weirdness of Hill’s actions. Jay and Mark Duplass couldn’t have picked a better actor for the role.
I was most impressed by John C. Reilly’s range in this movie. In the past five years, he’s elected to do more anarchic comedies where the dialogue and premise were so outrageous that it couldn’t be taken literally in any form. Films like Talladega Nights, Dewey Cox and The Promotion really put a damper on where Reilly could go as an actor. If you’re into that type of “stupid” comedies, this is not for you. But for Reilly to take on a romantic comedy and play a more serious role was certainly fresh. The movie was enjoyable in the sense that it was real-life dialogue, it wasn’t forced; they created a real comical duplication of how a weirdo, clingy 22-year-old would feel if his mother got a goofy boyfriend. The sheer awkwardness of the film made it great.
The film made about $180,000 this weekend in the box office. You’re probably thinking that’s a small amount right? Wrong. Cyrus had the highest per theater average out of all the films this weekend. It was only released in four theaters, two in New York and two in Los Angeles. That would make the per theater average at about $45,000. That slaughters second place in Toy Story 3 with roughly $27,000 per theater. If you’re thinking I’m being a little too positive, maybe I am since those are the two biggest markets in the United States. But there’s no reason to believe this movie won’t be able to gross a lot of money if it’s released countrywide.
This was better than Hill's Get Him to the Greek. It’s worth the dough. Trust me on this one, you won’t be disappointed. So if you live in New York or Los Angeles, go see the movie. Otherwise, just hope that they will expand the theater count; you won’t want to miss it.