I kinda wanted to see Cyrus when it came out several months back, but I never got around to it. I can’t recall which movies were in theaters at the time but I’m sure they were more theater-worthy films. Anyway, so I got the movie on my computer and finally was going to watch it yesterday and it starts very dramatically, and coming off a little like a horror film, and then Danielle Harris and Lance Henrikson get listed in the opening credits, and the title comes up: Cyrus – the mind of a serial killer. By this time, I have figured out I am watching a different Cyrus, of course; the title just clinches it. So I reduce the window for a moment, get on IMDB and look up the movie I am watching. Like the other Cyrus, this one came out this year, but unlike the other Cyrus, it stars not John C Reilly, Marisa Tomei (who have both been on Oscar’s stage) and Jonah Hill but, as I mentioned already, Danielle Harris (fine enough back in Halloween IV the return of Michael Myers but seemingly losing her ability to act with each role… not that she was particularly great back then), Lance Henrickson (who can somehow make horrible dialogue sound awesome… he should headline Shyamalan’s next movie, put all memory of Wahlberg’s ridiculous turn in the happening out of our collective heads) and Brian Krause (appropriate since he was in Sleepwalkers and coincidentally the dream I was having just a few hours before this viewing involved creatures not unlike he and his mother in that film… even needed my two cats to help fight them off… it is worth noting that I cannot recall him ever being a good actor, and without an IMDB search I can’t actually recall another film he was in though I know his face for sure).
So, this movie attempts to be somewhat postmodern, not meta but structuring itself a little differently from the usual slasher film (or, really, an even more sub- genre, the likes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn but without the crazy mutants… which makes no sense now that I’ve typed it, since that genre depends on the crazy mutated (by inbreeding if not radiation) hillbillies, while this one just has some small town folk), but managing to neither deconstruct nor reconstruct the subgenre. It does try (and occasionally manages) to be a little smarter than some movies like it, using the framing device of a reporter (Harris) interviewing a local (Henrikson) who claims to know the identity of the guy who may have killed hundreds of college students locally… SPOILERS AHEAD. This guy is the titular Cyrus, a guy who everybody thinks had his wife run out on him with their baby and another guy. But, in flashback, we see Cyrus actually started his killing with them, even the baby, killed just below frame but with a good bit of creepy acting on the part of Krause and some nice sound with the abrupt cutoff of the baby’s crying. Of course the real creepy part comes later, when that baby shows up again… END SPOILERS. Krause does some good creepy, and transitions from nicer guy who owns a local eatery (which ties into his killing in the manner of Motel Hell, if you know that film). Henrikson does fine but his part actually gets a little ruined by the writing when the film tries to include an extra twist to distract from how obvious the other one should be—SPOILERS AGAIN—the obvious would be Henrikson actually IS this Cyrus guy pretending to just have known him, but instead for no reason except really the obviousness of that option, he isn’t, and Cyrus shows up and well, enough spoilers. For a better take on this kind of thing, reporter and killer, but with much better meta stuff going on, get Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.
As for the other Cyrus, which I got around to watching last night, it was a serviceable film, with much better writing than that other Cyrus. John C Reilly was good, Marisa Tomei really didn’t have much to do, Jonah Hill was rather good, playing a guy who almost would have fit in as the titular Cyrus in the other film, though—SPOILER—not killing anybody. In the end, this film was less than the sum of its parts, good but not great, and honestly, I almost hoped this Cyrus might end up homicidal as that would have turned a fairly straightforward throughline into something more interesting. The writing was fine, occasionally clever, but there was nothing particularly notable here, nor with the directing.
Where the directing was good was once I moved past yesterday’s Cyruses and went out to see Somewhere today. Sofia Coppola has a tendency toward long shots, lingering occasionally too long, but if you go in expecting that sort of thing, it works, like group meditation on each scene. There’s a remarkable absence of music in the film, with there really only being background music at the very beginning and very end and in one key scene. Otherwise, music is ambient, present in certain scenes for various reasons—strippers dancing (twice), a party, a massage, an ice skating routine (and aside from the massage which is interrupted, these songs play out in their entirety… more of that slow meditative Coppola style. The movie is very quiet, and certain scenes that might play out quite loudly and dramatically in other films play here without any words at all (notably a scene that is briefly in trailers—so there isn’t much of a spoiler here—in which Cleo (Elle Fanning) is a little angry that her father (Stephen Dorff) had a woman stay over. The climax of the film comes without much detail; fitting to the title, Dorff’s Johnny is headed somewhere but we aren’t privy to the specifics… really, at this point, I would argue we don’t need the specifics. Others might argue, amusingly, that the film goes nowhere. But, Johnny has a clear character arc, has realized who he is (or isn’t) and is setting out to change it. This film isn’t about how he changes it, though, but a lot of people would probably rather it be about that part of Johnny’s story instead of just this bit leading up to it. Personally, I like Coppola’s meditative style and the little story she’s decided to tell here. Dorff is good in a very subdued role—far from, say, his role long ago in SFW (love that movie), for example. Fanning has moments that seem inspired, getting a lot done with very few words, but then also has scenes where she really doesn’t have to do much but be present. The supporting cast comes and goes and isn’t really worth talking about
Now, for fun, I would love to see the first Cyrus, but with Jonah Hill as the killer, directed by Coppola, a nice film mash up that would definitely deserve some sort of notice if not awards… or maybe someone should just get her to direct a remake of Three on a Meathook, as that film could use a good meditative pace befitting its antiwar message (or at least the message it pretends it has so briefly in the middle of the film)
For the record, Three on a Meathook is an awful film, but it falls in the so bad its entertaining category. In Shyamalan terms, that would make it more The Happening than The Lady in the Water.
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