Cyrus

During my first few weeks living in Glasgow I went to see Cyrus one afternoon with my flat-mate. It is a 2010 comedy-drama film that was written and directed by the brothers Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass. It stars John C. Reilly - who is known for his funny role in Step Brothers and the naive husband in Chicago, Jonah Hill - who starred as a sex-starved, foul-mouthed teenager in Superbad, and Catherine Keener - who starred as the nice lady who worked in the Ebay shop in the 40-year-old virgin.

At first, I was very unsure of this film as I'd never heard of the Duplass brothers, as they have only seem to do small, low-budget films. However, from the cast, I was sure it would be a hilarious film. Boy was I wrong. It is a very slow film with nothing much that really happens. The plot of the movie is: John is seven years divorced from his wife and is having trouble adjusting to his new life. After meeting Molly at a party, he thinks that maybe he has found the perfect person again. There's just one problem: Cyrus, Molly's grown son. John must find a way to make his romance with Molly work despite intentional and unintentional interference by Cyrus. From the adverts it looks like it will be a Step Brothers part 2 by the way the two men are acting, you expect them to have numerous encounters doing shocking things to one another, but no. They say a few sly words and an unconvincing fight but that's it! The camera work is also very shaky and it looks like it's been done from a home-made camera, which is fair enough if you want to give that effect like The Blair Witch Project, but not in a film like this. The acting also seems stiff as you can't really feel the love between Molly and Cyrus or the heat between Molly and John. All in all it was a let down of a movie because that movie had certain expectations from what the actors have previously been in and it wasn't remotely funny.

I give Cyrus 1/5