Delayed Reaction: C’mon C’mon

Premise: A man agrees to watch his nephew while his sister sorts some things out with his brother-in-law/her husband.

 

I’m disappointed that I didn’t love this movie more. I really should. It’s got all the right parts. Coming of age story. A24. Good cast. A somewhat meditative tone. And I ultimately did enjoy it. It’s great seeing Joaquin Phoenix chill down and play a human. The kid, Woody Normal, gives a solid child actor performance. I love where Gaby Hoffman has settled now. While she never really went away, for most people, she came back from being a child star around 2013 with some very adventurous roles. The best example is Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus. For a while, if you needed someone crazy, you hired Gaby Hoffman. Then, in the last couple years, it’s like she got that out of her system and is very interestingly normal. In C’mon C’mon and Winning Time she’s great without it seeming like she’s trying to get someone to notice. Altogether C’mon C’mon is a thoughtful little movie.

 

As I said though, I wanted to like it more. There’s no single thing about it I disliked. Rather, there were just small strikes against it. Like, by and large, Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do it for me. While I recognize his talent as an actor, he’s never a selling point in a movie for me. I’m not seeing a Joaquin Phoenix movie. I’m seeing a movie that Joaquin Phoenix is in. Change this to a Michael Shannon movie and I’m at least a couple percentage points more interested*. Similarly, Mike Mills’ particular brand of thoughtful rumination doesn’t connect with me as well as others. Beginners and 20^th Century Women I also thought were good but didn’t blow me away. The David Lowery or Richard Linklater version of this I probably would’ve liked better. And it’s petty, but the blank and white annoyed me. I’m getting tired of that getting used as a cheat code to make a movie more respectable. It’s like a musician going acoustic to make a song feel more personal. I see what you are doing.

 

*OK, I don’t think Michael Shannon would be right at all for this. I just did a quick search for actors born the same year as Phoenix and I noticed his name first. Don’t let that distract from the greater point.

 

As I said, it’s a bunch of small things that got in the way of me connecting with the movie as much as I’d’ve liked too. I liked it enough though. Pairing Phoenix with a child is a smart way to bring out his best qualities as an actor and temper his worst. He carries himself with so much “hurt child” energy to begin with that forcing him into a situation where he has to be the adult creates interesting conflict in his performance. As is, C’mon C’mon is feeling a lot like a Moonlight: a movie I respect that leaves me on the outside looking in.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend