Comedy on a shoestring budget
Cyrus is the title character of the new comedy by writers/directors Mark and Jay Duplass. It stars John C. Reilly as a man in a post-divorce funk that finally meets the woman, Marissa Tomei, who might just revitalize his life. The only problem is that Tomei has a grown son named Cyrus, played by Jonah Hill, who is, to put it mildly, a bit territorial about his mother’s affections. What results is a sort-of skewed love triangle that starts off in the territory of awkward situations and polite laughs and then veers into the country of outright hostility and comedic threats before settling into a safe conclusion.
All of it is pretty funny, but the most inspiring and at the same time limiting thing about this movie is the budget. Mark and Jay Duplass seem to have nothing but a camera and some editing equipment to their name. They have no sets, no special effects, no costumes, and no sound effects. The big splurge seems to be the hiring of the cast and the extras for the wedding scene. Other than that the most technically audacious shot is the outside of a car driving down the freeway. In fact, I would venture to bet that the Catherine Keener character, Reilly’s ex-wife, who works as a movie editor is probably using the very computer equipment that the Duplass’s used in post-production of this movie. (I don’t have any evidence. It’s just a hunch. I also think the guy in “Paranormal Activity” used his computer to edit his movie also. Another hunch). The point of all this, of course, is to implore any would be writers and directors with nothing but a camera to go out and watch this movie. There is very little stopping you from doing exactly what the Duplass’s did: Produce a pretty good movie with almost no budget.
Since the makers of this movie were limited by the ways they could tell the story, they have focused on two very important things that don’t really cost a thing: Writing and Performances. Almost the entire movie is simply people talking, most of the time within one location, Tomei’s and Cyrus’ house. The fact that the movie succeeds on being entertaining the entire time is a testament to both. If you want to see a movie that has everything but Writing and Performances you can watch “Date Night.” That had an enormous budget and utterly failed to be funny. It just goes to show that Comedy is not something that you can throw money at. It is one of the only two genres that are budget irrelevant. (The other is horror, but only because those people have absolutely no standards).
It’s well known that Oscar nominees John C. Reilly, Marissa Tomei, and Catherine Keener are fine actors, so it isn’t a surprise that they all do a good job in this movie. Only quibble I have is that Tomei is too good-looking to the point where it becomes almost unbelievable that she would fall so hard for a guy with a mug like John C. Reilly. I’m not just being a jerk, Reilly agrees with me. One of his funniest lines is, “Are you flirting with me. I’m like Shrek. What are you doing out here in the forest with Shrek?” It may have been a better idea to cast someone who looked a little more like Reilly but you know I don’t really care all that much. I’m not about to be that hard on an actress because she looks too good. (Now that I think more about it, I feel stupid for even mentioning it.)
The revelation in this movie is that Jonah Hill has some acting chops. He is usually cast as a bombastic blowhard that yells all his lines, but in this movie he takes on much more mature, sensitive, and subversive. The result is a character unlike any he has ever played. Since I enjoy comparing Hill’s career arc with Michael Cera’s as much as I like comparing Matt Damon’s with Ben Affleck’s I will conclude that with this movie, Hill has nudged a lead over his Superbad partner. Whereas Cera is consistently a lead in big movies, he has always played a variation of the same role. Jonah Hill on the other hand has taken on a varied amount of supporting roles and in the meantime seems to have become a more rounded actor. Finally, he has shown a willingness to appear in little movies like this one in order to play roles that should allow him to break his Superbad typecast as an angry loudmouth. The result is his best performance yet. Let’s just see what Cera in the upcoming Scott Pilgrim v. the World has to say about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment