Film review: C'mon C'mon in the running for film of the year

Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman in C'mon C'mon. Photo / Trigger Marketing

C'mon, C'mon (M, 125 mins)
Written and directed by Mike Mills

C'mon C'mon is likely to be one of the best films of the year.

It's beautifully acted, the cinematography is superb and it's thought-provoking. Its big question is: do you need a man to raise a man? Audiences will find plenty in the film to lead them to their own conclusions.

Johnny, a straight, single, childless, middle-aged radio journalist (Joaquin Phoenix), gets a call from his estranged sister Viv, a university teacher and solo parent Viv (Gaby Hoffmann), asking him to fly from New York to Los Angeles to watch over her only son Jesse (Woody Norman, 11) while she goes to the rescue of her bipolar orchestral conductor ex-husband Paul (Scoot McNairy), Jesse's dad. Johnny agrees, despite his inexperience with children.

Johnny's job requires him to move around, interviewing immigrant teenagers. Jesse tags along. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan films Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and New Orleans capturing the essence of winter in each place, without letting bleakness dominate. It's a rare chance to see slices of the USA from afar, without hype or politics.

Shot in black and white, C'mon C'mon looks and feels like a documentary, and to some extent actually is one. The teenagers who provide their oral histories for Johnny are real people talking candidly about the future, largely unscripted. "I hope it gets better, but it won't," says one. Any tendency to be dragged down by sentiments like that is avoided with an immediate cut to a Jesse scene. "Blah, blah, blah, blah," Jesse says, whenever it's time to move on. Top-notch directing by Mike Mills, with editing by Jennifer Vecchiarello.

Jesse has a weird inner fantasy world populated with orphans. He loves conducting imaginary orchestras. He plays at doing Johnny's job, wandering with Johnny through parks, along city streets, always on the move.

Jesse knows that all of us are heading somewhere, often not knowing exactly where, but his bedtime story, The Wizard of Oz shows him what has to be done about that. It's simple. In Jesse's words, "C'mon c'mon, we have to keep going."

In his screenwriter role, Mike Mills weaves in extracts from professor Viv's books, with titles superimposed, documentary style. Andrea Nair's A how-to guide to parent-child relationship repair, Mothers: An essay on love and cruelty by Jacqueline Rose may suggest that the film is a heavy-handed manual for child-rearing, but it's far from that.

Mike Mills puts Johnny and Jesse in front of us, lightly, and sits back, inviting us to decide what we think of their relationship and what it might mean for us, individually and collectively. When they yell at each other, like a pair of barking dogs, "I'm okay, I'm not okay," it's tempting to join in.

All intending parents, everyone who's a parent or knows a parent, anyone curious about what it might be like to be a parent, particularly their own, and finally grandparents struggling to understand the way their children are parenting, would find C'mon, C'mon compelling viewing. Is that everyone over 13? Probably, that's a yes. Must see.

• Movies are rated: Avoid, Recommended, Highly recommended or Must see.

Giveaway

The first person to bring an image or hardcopy of this review to Starlight Cinema Taupō will win a free ticket to C'mon C'mon.