For months after I saw The Puffy Chair at the 2005 South by Southwest film festival, I waited for it to open in New Jersey so I could tell my TimeOFF readers about it. It wasn’t the best movie I’d seen that year, but it was one of the most likeable. A low-key but laugh-out-loud story about a relationship-testing road trip, The Puffy Chair is just the kind of warmhearted, humanistic comedy a lot of the people I know would like to see more of.
But it never had a theatrical run, and Baghead, brothers Jay and Mark Duplass’ second feature, never got to Jersey (both films are now available on Netflix). That makes Cyrus is the first Duplass brothers movie to play at a theater near you, so I’m sorry to say it’s not their best work. Still, it’s a lot better than most of what makes it into the multiplex.
Jonah Hill is Cyrus, a terrifyingly passive-aggressive man-sized boy with an Oedipus complex Freud would have loved to sink his teeth into. Not that it’s hard to understand his fixation, seeing as how his mom, Molly (Marisa Tomei in earth mother mode), is as warm and nurturing as she is juicily sexy. The two seem very happy in their too-tight little family circle until John (John C. Reilly) falls for Molly and bumbles in. Then the fight is on, as Cyrus and John wage a clandestine war for the affections of the blithely clueless Molly.
To read the rest of my review, click here.
This article was originally published on The House Next Door.
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