Delayed Reaction: Cherry

Premise: A college student goes to war, comes back, becomes an addict, and robs banks.

 

This is a bummer of a movie. And, I don't mean it was a riveting portrait of a young man struggling with his demons. I mean, it's a movie where nothing good happens and I'm along for the ride for nearly 2.5 hours.

 

The buzz going into the movie was that it was the Russo brothers coming off mega Marvel hits pulling in Tom Holland for a dramatic role. It's not Holland's first serious role. His first big movie was 2012's The Impossible and just last year he made the Southern crime movie The Devil All the Time. Cherry is the first movie that, before anyone saw it, they said "I wonder if Tom Holland could be an Oscar contender with this?" It was also the Russos' chance to remind people that they are talented directors and not just really good at doing what the Marvel machine demands.

 

Ultimately, my response to this movie is: for Holland - too soon, and for the Russos - too much.

 

I think Tom Holland is a terrific actor and on his way to being a hell of a movie star. He just plain looks too boyish still. He's not grizzled. Yes, he looks great as a young college student and his physique is straight out of Jarhead. He just doesn't read as an Army veteran with PTSD and a drug addiction. It doesn't help that he's paired with Ciara Bravo, who will be able to play high school students into her 30s if she wants. It feels like this movie could be made with them in 5 years, when they can both easily pass for college students but also play better as real adults. I know it's a little unfair, because both actors are well into their 20s at this point, but this is how they read on screen right now: way too young-looking. And it distracted me from so much else of what they were doing.

 

With directors, I often like to say they need to get things out of their system. I'm not sure how true it actually is. I remember thinking Sucker Punch was Zack Snyder getting all of his excesses out of his system so he could move onto using his distinct style more conservatively for future movies, and that certainly didn't come true. Normally, I point to this idea for young directors. They get that first chance to make a movie and try to pack all of their ideas into it, just in case they don't get another chance this big. I think this applies to the Russos with Cherry as well. They went straight from inventive and ambitious Community (and other sitcoms) episodes to giant Marvel movies. So, they've made a career so far out of how well they mimic other formulas or make them their own. Cherry is their first time in a while where it would be known as a Russo brothers film first and foremost. And it's a lot. This movie is packed with expensive-looking shots or over stylized shots. It's like they are so used to shooting things on an Endgame scale that they forgot how to do small moments. I don't know what to say other than "calm down".

 

The motivations in the story feel a little thin. The circumstance around Holland joining the army plays like a confusion from a sitcom episode. Bravo becoming a junkie too just sort of happens. And the movie makes bank robbing look super easy. I'm annoyed as well by the in-media res beginning, where Holland starts walking the audience through how to rob a bank, because the composure of Holland then is not at all congruent with the Holland we see later robbing the banks. I can't think of a reason why they want him to be Zack Morris robbing banks early and caffeine pill-addicted Jessie Spano when he's robbing banks later.

 

Looking for parts of this movie I like is sand through the fingers. I was rooting for it a lot. I even saw it with a "fuck you" attitude after it was dismissed by initial critics. I was hoping to "well, actually" the consensus of the movie. Instead, it lived up to the poor reputation. The casting is wrong. The direction is overwhelming. The story lacks proper motivation. There just plain wasn't much to like.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend