3/10 When I first heard that Joaquin Phoenix’s first follow up role to his Best Actor Oscar winning performance in “Joker” was going to be a movie called “C’Mon C’Mon”, I was excited to see how one of the best working actors today would follow up such an iconic and impressive role. Phoenix overall does have a great track record of picking which films to be a part of, which only added to my excitement. Unfortunately, writer/director Mike Mills gives us a movie that ends up wasting the massive talents of every actor involved with this. Mike Mills’ filmography has always given us terrific performances but the scripts he writes and movies he creates have never done much for me. His latest movie is easily one of the most pretentious movie going experiences of 2021. Black and white for no reason whatsoever? Check. NY and LA settings? Check. Use of sophisticated opera and classical music throughout? Check. Mills hits the pretentious trifecta which is why snotty critics will love this movie (currently at an insane 95% on Rotten Opinions, uh, I mean Tomatoes) but your average audience members could care less about this, which the box office has shown. At almost two hours long, the movie is also boring and drags in several places. Finally, I know that no two kids are the same but a lot of the dialogue from the nine year old character of Jesse (Woody Norman) felt unnatural and unrealistic, like he was using huge words that no nine year old would use. The movie also made me extremely thankful not to be a parent, which I guess is a positive. As for what worked, the performances were all fantastic with Phoenix showing a softer side than he usually does, Norman being extremely talented for being a child actor and Gaby Hoffmann and Scoot McNairy being wonderful with their limited screen time. The script, when it is working, does definitely have a beating heart to it and the emotional aspects are well done. Jesse’s father has mental illness problems and for a little boy to have to cope with an emotionally unstable father who often disappears and a mother trying her best to work, raise her son almost alone and try to take care of her husband, I did sympathize with Jesse’s plight and understand why he acted the way he did. Despite some interesting story beats, the emotional depth and winning performances, I couldn’t get past the slow pace and how truly pretentious this movie is. Even Phoenix’s character’s job felt pretentious and we get read a bunch of poems/books/stories with their titles appearing onscreen as if they were product placement for their respective authors and I just didn’t care. After having seen this movie once, this definitely will not be a movie that I revisit in the future or recommend to anyone I know, unless they need something to fall asleep too. If you c’mon out of your house to venture to the theater, don’t make the trip to see this pretentious bore.
#BlahBlah / #TheBorphan / #TheSistersBrother / #VivAndLetViv / #ArgoingToNY / #12DaysASlave
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