'C'mon C'mon' is manipulative manipulative
A24
Life-affirming and denial are mutually exclusive. So it’s beyond disingenuous that “C’mon C’mon” refuses to ask real questions and then salutes itself for finding the answer, with that being nothing more than “Life is hard” and “Feelings are important.”
Important to say: This is a terrible time in the world, and the U.S. specifically. People are justifiably looking for anything that provides some kind of emotional breathing room, or even just art that feels like a hug. That this movie gives explicit permission to accept that you’re not OK will seem comforting to some. I get it. But there’s a difference between honestly confronting difficulties to find relief and merely shooting fish in a barrel. With his latest, writer-director Mike Mills (“Beginners,” “20th Century Women”) grazes across malaise without purpose, using black-and-white cinematography and mood music to try to bring credibility and say what the film itself can’t. It’s like the National covering Coldplay, or a motivational speaker with her eyes closed.
More specifically: After minimal contact for the past year, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix, as warm and restrained as he’s ever been) becomes a temporary caretaker for his nine-year-old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) while Johnny’s sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) tries to help her husband Paul (Scoot McNairy), who is bipolar. Plotwise, that’s really it. Johnny and Jesse progressively bond, and anyone who’s capable of feeling anything should respond to moments when the uncle briefly can’t find the boy, which happens twice. The Judy Garland line about parenting and your heart living outside your body is absolutely true, and “C’mon C’mon” has a few undeniable moments of that straightforward truth.
Mostly, though, Mills seems to think that putting a great actor and a cute kid together is enough, keeping stakes extremely low and exploring contemporary life with a perspective that can be most generously considered cutesy idealism. Johnny is still hurting from losing his mother and a long-term girlfriend, but nothing that unfolds in “C’mon C’mon” reflects on mortality or considerations of time passing by. Even worse is Johnny’s work recording audio interviews with kids as they share their thoughts about the future, during which he provides no thoughtful discussion and Mills includes sweet comments about adults not knowing everything and the world being OK, just not as clean.
Again: Society as a whole can absolutely benefit from the innocence of youth, and the film presents an important, enlightened, vulnerable portrait of masculinity. But “C’mon C’mon” explicitly removes an arguably mandatory recognition of fear and conflict from these conversations, at least in terms of race and school violence. That doesn’t mean this light, well-meaning film had to be intense and depressing. It means that if you’re going to have your main character interviewing children about the future, it’s cheap and twinkly and phony to do it like this.
After quoting numerous books to feebly benefit from the words of others and exploiting the joy of a New Orleans parade and declining to consider any variation in locations where Johnny would do these interviews and what might come out of different communities, Mills attempts to superficially capitalize on nostalgia without any thought behind his suggestion that childhood moments are fleeting. Is this because of current stresses for adults, or merely the difficulty of memory? Is the interview series meant to be a reaction to the present? What are the simplistic observations really intended to accomplish? (If you want a movie that really engages with priorities and loneliness and family in a rewarding way, see “Pig.”)
Where Mills’ wife Miranda July brings remarkable insight and vision to her work (“Me and You and Everyone We Know,” “The Future,” “Kajillionaire”), Mills replaces unique curiosity with naivete. Glancing important ideas in trite ways isn’t an achievement. It’s a band-aid disguised as surgery.
D+
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