C’mon C’mon (2021)

Directed by: Mike Mills | 108 minutes | drama | Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, Woody Norman, Scoot McNairy, Molly Webster, Jaboukie Young-White, Deborah Strang, Sunni Patterson, Jenny Eliscu, Mary Passeri, Brandon Rush, Brey’on Shaw

After the death of their mother, brother and sister, Johnny and Viv, are estranged from each other. When academic Viv (Gaby Hoffman) has to care for her ailing husband, she feels compelled to ask single Johnny, an unshaven Joaquin Phoenix, to babysit her son Jesse (Woody Norman) for a while. At first, the busy radio producer Johnny doesn’t quite like this. However, under Viv’s inspired guidance from a distance, a father-son dynamic develops between Johnny and his perky nephew. Shot in black and white, slightly casual and hip, ‘C’mon C’mon’ prefers to avoid pretensions. Like a cuddly lobbe, the film digs into the relationship between children and adults, and secretly gets under the skin with universally recognizable situations.

The driving force behind ‘C’mon C’mon’ is Renaissance man Mike Mills, married to also artistic gymnast Miranda July. He writes, directs, designs LP covers and makes music. As in his infectious drama comedies ‘Beginners’ (2010) ’20th Century Women’ (2016), Mills focuses on relationships between people and their (emotional) ingenuity in the face of adversity, often drawn from life. In fact, you are dealing here with a traditional humanist from American soil – people are allowed to make something of it, or at least consider what they can do well and pass on during their short existence on the globe.

The relationship between uncle and cousin is the beating heart of ‘C’mon ‘C’mon’. Around it float all kinds of striking, and less striking, observations that also have to do with Johnny’s current radio project: he interviews children all over America about how they see the future. With all his good intentions, without his mother’s permission, he drags Jesse along on this mission. A perfect combo of education and babysitting, Johnny hopes. In addition to the fascinating educational drama between Johnny and Jesse, four ‘interview cities’ are therefore included in the film structure: Los Angeles, New York, Detroit and New Orleans. Based on the four cardinal directions, the film puts young and diverse America on the map in a documentary-style and shows something of this gigantic country that you don’t see enough in Hollywood: the fears and hopes of the young part of the silent majority. Sometimes interviews with the children are small and hopeful revelations. In addition, the locations are beautifully captured on camera by Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan, from the likes of ‘I, Daniel Blake’ (Ken Loach, 2016) and ‘The Favorite’ (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018).

‘C’mon C’mon’ sensitively shows that every person has their flaws, from small to large, and that this can create tension between generations. Yet you need each other to settle that tension and not only does the child learn from the parent, but also the other way around. The contrast between the career-conscious Johnny and the up-and-coming and wise-cracking Jesse clarifies this point royally. Sometimes the best friends, other times they can stick each other behind the wallpaper. Where they are far away from each other, the pain points manifest. The gain in ‘C’mon C’mon’ is in growing together. The only unfortunate thing is that the story repeats this rather familiar mantra too many times. That is why the film has become a successful, yet remarkable sum of contradictory impulses: universal and playful, not entirely penetrating, nevertheless of a salutary quality.