Sundance Review: 'Cyrus'

Here's a bonus Sundance Film Festival review from Big Picture reader W., who is in attendance at Park City this year and is seeing a lot of the more talked about movies at the fest. I didn't expect to hear from him again until Monday, I think, but he takes a look at Cyrus for us now and also hinted that we might get a review of the horror comedy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil pretty soon, too. Good work, W. As for Cyrus, we featured the trailer back on Friday, and pointed out then that even though it's still a low budget affair, it's a huge step up in that regard for the Duplass brothers, the writer-director combo behind the Baghead, most recently. The film stars John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, and Marisa Tomei, and is a Fox Searchlight film without a release date yet. Some of that could depend on the reaction it gets in Utah. And here's W.'s reaction: Cyrus is a very solid film. It fits right in with Fox Searchlight and the style of films they normally do. Jonah Hill is new to this world (as he said in the Q & A..."I am used to doing Q & A's for Spike TV, not Sundance) and he did a great job. I am not sure I heard this right or not, but apparently him and John C. Reilly had just met when they started this film. They had an amazing chemistry, which isn't surprising for two comedy actors who have worked with similar people. The story is set up with John C. Reilly's character, who is divorced and alone, meeting Marisa Tomei's character, who is unbelievably sexy and her only turn on appears to be brutal honesty. That has to be the turn on, because I didn't see any other reason she was into JC Reilly's character. Jonah Hill comes into the story as the surprise 21-year-old son to Tomei who is still completely dependent on his mother (There is a picture of him still breast feeding at the age of around 10). Hill doesn't want to lose his mother to this guy, so decides to ruin the relationship. It sounds like typical comedy for Hill, but it is much deeper than that. Hill shows his emotion and struggles with being independent as a dramatic actor would. He does a great job of mixing his comedy tactics from the Apatow team films and this dramatic acting that I had no clue he was capable of. I wouldn't call it an amazing performance, but it was a pleasant surprise of what I thought he could do. It was a great ensemble and a great story. The Duplass brothers really made a great film. They use their own unique way of filming to bring everything to life. In the Q & A, the brothers were very humbled claiming all they had to do was leave the camera rolling and let these actors do their thing. As I believe Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly has a very special gift for improv, these two deserve the credit for writing and directing this very entertaining film.