Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman make Mike Mills’s family drama worth the patience it occasionally demands. We recommend it for their awkward, affectionate exchanges, with a caveat about the film’s habit of explaining feelings the actors have already made clear.
C’mon C’mon is a warm, sometimes over-explained family drama, and its performances make it worth the occasional wait. Writer and director Mike Mills takes the business of listening to children seriously, including the impatience and uncertainty that make it difficult. The bond between Johnny and Jesse gives him enough to work with without much extra assistance. Yet he keeps bringing in interviews, memories and commentary, as if the small exchanges between these two might not quite be sufficient.
Joaquin Phoenix gives Johnny a gentleness that never quite settles into confidence, which is important when Woody Norman’s Jesse is so capable of wrong-footing him. The boy’s eccentricities occasionally feel too insistently written, but the actor makes his attention and resistance equally credible. We were moved by the uncertainty in their exchanges: the adult keeps having to reconsider how to respond to the child. Neither performance hurries to turn that awkwardness into a reassuring lesson, and their ease together makes the pauses worth watching.
Gaby Hoffmann gives Viv the complication the film needs whenever its view of family life threatens to become too comfortable. Her care feels worked at, and the performance conveys how much concentration motherhood requires. There is less space for Paul, played by Scoot McNairy, whose mental illness receives too narrow a treatment. That imbalance matters because a film so interested in understanding people ought to give him more than the effect he has on those around him.
Robbie Ryan’s black-and-white cinematography makes the closeness between the performers easy to study, and we like its quiet attention to faces. The monochrome can also make an ordinary exchange look as though it has been selected for special contemplation. Katie Byron’s production design is helpfully unobtrusive, keeping the surroundings from competing with the actors. Together, those choices suit a drama whose chief interest is how people behave when they have no confident idea of what they should say.
Jennifer Vecchiarello’s editing has the difficult job of making the interviews, flashbacks and voice-over belong to the same conversation. At their most effective, the interviews let other children speak for themselves, and we welcome the change of company. The trouble comes when another passage of reflection arrives after a performance has already told us enough. We begin to feel the film arranging our response, and at 110 minutes those interruptions make a modest story feel longer than it needs to.
Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner’s music works best as a gentle accompaniment to the uncertainty in the acting. Its restraint matters in a film already so willing to spell out what people feel. Within the family-drama genre, the film distinguishes itself through the attention it gives to the effort of getting along. There is pleasure in being allowed to spend time with these people, even when the patience becomes a little indulgent.
Watch it when there is time to sit with a conversation that does not get straight to the point. Anyone hoping for brisk plotting should choose something else. For a quieter evening, the company is worth keeping.
