There really is something special about the bond of love between a mother and her son. Especially when the mother clearly has loneliness issues and the son has overwhelming detachment issues. Such is the situation presented in “Cyrus”, a bit of a dark comedy starring John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill.
Reilly plays John, a bit of a loser, who is going through a divorce from his wife, played by Catherine Keener. She is about to get re-married to Tim (Matt Walsh). This puts life into perspective for John and he starts to realize its time he got on with his own life. So he goes out and gets trashed at a bar and ends up having a fling with a woman, Molly (Tomei), who is clearly out of his league…or so she seems. But like any woman, Molly has her secrets, too.
Molly’s big secret comes in the form of her 21 year-old overly dependent son, Cyrus, played by recent Academy Award nominee, Jonah Hill. Cyrus and John seem to hit it off but we quickly see why Molly tried to keep him a secret from her new boyfriend. Cyrus suffers from serious abandonment issues. The only problem is he hasn’t been abandoned by anyone. So I guess it’s more of a fear of abandonment. He refuses to grow up and leave the nest, no matter how unhappy this makes his mother, who is clearly looking to find someone to keep her company.
Most of the movie is a battle between Cyrus and John as they compete for mommy’s attention. Cyrus is absolutely unwilling to allow his mother to move on and John isn’t planning on backing down because, as he sees it, he’s out of Molly’s league anyway. Some of the best moments come in the challenging glances between John and Cyrus.
“Cyrus” gets some wonderful performances from all three of the lead actors. This is a dark comedy, which is a bit different for Jonah Hill, who seems to get stuck in more slap stick comedies. The same goes for John C. Reilly. He’s always been a great character actor but lately has found himself in a rut where he has been trying a little to hard to be like his buddy Will Ferrell. As for Marisa Tomei, she’s just as good as the beautiful but internally damaged mother who just can’t bring herself to cut the apron strings and let Cyrus grow up.
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