Tackling weighty themes and shot in classy monochrome, this coming-of-ager oozes prestige. But is it as deep as it seems?
Steven Spielberg once said that if you over-rehearse child actors you risk a bad case of the cutes. But it may be even more of a risk with very natural child actors and their accomplished adult co-stars in beautiful black-and-white films in love with their own emotional literacy.
Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon is a swooningly photographed drama about a radio journalist and adorable guy in middle age called Johnny, played by Joaquin Phoenix – part of the great tradition of journalists in the movies in that his employer requires of him just one big apparently open-ended task. He and a colleague are travelling around the
United States for what amounts to a substantial oral history project, interviewing high-school teenagers about what they think of their lives, their families, their communities and their futures (that beckoningly enigmatic future is what gives the film its title). Johnny is single, having just split with a long-term girlfriend: he is smart, funny, dishevelled and paunchy – and a good listener to the kids whose honesty and intelligence he admires.