Mommy troubles

Cyrus is a movie that may be too small for its own good.

Plainly put, there isn't enough of the deviously funny comedy featuring Jonah Hill (Get Him to the Greek) and John C. Reilly (Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant). While the focus on relationships is refreshing, the plot is in dire need of just more — more climax, more direction, more everything.

Brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, best known for their indie favorite The Puffy Chair, created Cyrus with Reilly in mind. The resulting character is John (Reilly), a divorcee who finally crawls out of his slump when he meets the perfect woman, Molly (Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler).

Well, she's perfect aside from the fact that her 21-year-old son, Cyrus (Hill), is her best friend and roommate. It's creepy, and it is supposed to be. John — being the nice guy he is — tries to make it work but ends up finding quite an adversary in Cyrus.

What follows is a battle over Molly's affections and a revealing story about insecurity, panic attacks and crappy parenting. The Duplass brothers retain the intimacy of their former work using a shaky-cam style (no tripod necessary) and genuine dialogue that aims to show what a real person would do in a strange situation.

Generally, the tone remains light and down to earth, with a couple heartbreaker moments here and there that are real enough to be affecting. However, most of the entertainment comes from Cyrus' undercover attempts to sabotage Molly and John's relationship.

Hill enters into a whole new realm of creepy, particularly when John finds Cyrus making a sandwich in the middle of the night with nothing on but a big T-shirt and an oversized knife in hand, for spreading the peanut butter. His blank stare as he asks John if he wants a sandwich is priceless.

Aside from the comedy though, Hill's character is an anomaly in itself. It's hard to like him, but it's also hard to hate him. He is constantly lying to John and Molly in the name of his mission, though his actions reveal just as much loneliness and dependency as they reveal deceit.

Cyrus isn't just a weird, creepy character, he's tragically flawed, and Hill successfully brings that to light.

The three main characters each do a good job of being both real and strange at the same time. It's the women, though — Tomei and Catherine Keener (Please Give) as Jamie, John's ex-wife — who ground the story in the face of Hill and Reilly's comedy to give it a calmer, more relatable tone. Much like her role as the mother in Where the Wild Things Are, Keener is reliably strong in her supporting role.

Tomei in particular does a fantastic job of keeping Reilly in check, as their scenes together often solidify the reality of their unlikely relationship. To be frank — and a little shallow — it is somewhat hard to believe that a woman as beautiful as Tomei would hit on someone like Reilly. 

John even remarks at how Shrek-like he is during their first encounter. Molly just sends him an accepting smile, signaling that she just doesn't care about that.

Reilly's performance is generally bland and uninspired, despite having the original script written for him. Judging from his lack of precision, it seems as if Reilly was just playing himself, just a little more pathetic. Hill and Tomei did a much better job of portraying their specifically f—ed up characters, while Reilly was just lollygagging along. 

The love — or whatever it is — triangle the characters are caught up in leaves a lot to be pondered and little to be disappointed about. The obvious for pure entertainment, as mentioned before, is the fight between John and Cyrus. But with Molly's ignorance of the battle, her relationships with the two men ends up being the focal point of intellectual discussion.

The Cyrus-Molly relationship is a question of parenting versus friendship. The Molly-John affair is about growing older and being alone. All the while, John and Cyrus are battling it out. It makes for a fun tangle to watch fall apart in a later scene when Cyrus and John literally duke it out.

Cyrus is the opposite of a summer movie. It's small, personal and it depends largely on the quality of the acting. The Duplass brothers implement a style that begs improvisation, and for the most part, the actors make it happen, though Reilly's performance is severely lacking.

Had Reilly been able to match up with the sincerity of Hill and Tomei, Cyrus would have been a definite must-see. As it stands, Cyrus is a mild comedy mixed with a mild drama resulting in mild entertainment.

RATING: 3 stars out of 5

truben@umdbk.com