The (Second) Last Movie I Saw

Cyrus, directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, is the kind of low-key movie that generally gets lost amidst all the hoopla for the big summer blockbusters. It deserves a better fate than that, but to be truthful, its charms, while real, fall well short of making this anything more than a pleasant way to pass a couple hours. That's largely due to the performers, each of whom has a strong background in independent films as well as some notable success in more mainstream work. John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill carry the heavy load in the narrative, but the heart of the film is in Marisa Tomei's performance as the former's nascent girlfriend and the latter's mother. I've been a big fan of Tomei's since Untamed Heart, and while she enjoyed a momentary stardom after her Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, it's been in mostly smaller pictures that she has flourished in recent years, like The Wrestler, In the Bedroom, and Slums of Beverly Hills. In Cyrus, she plays a part that could have turned inconsequential once her attraction to Reilly's character sets in motion the competition with Hill. But where a big budget affair might've seized the opportunity to escalate the comic possibilities of that rivalry at the expense of character development, that wasn't the case here, and Tomei's subtle performance is essential for keeping the tension alive as she makes abundantly clear what's at stake for each of the two men, both in terms of what they hope to gain and stand to lose. Obviously, it's also to the Duplasses' credit that they tell the story as a realistic slice of life and not some kind of overinflated laugh fest. The movie may not elicit much more than the occasional chuckle, but they are well earned chuckles, arising from recognizable human actions, and I for one appreciate that. As I suggested above, this is no classic, but as an antidote for mindless junk (like Salt), it definitely serves a valuable function, at least for this moviegoer.