The Duplass brothers (co-writers and -directors Jay and Mark) are devout practitioners of something I'll call moment-based filmmaking. Graduates of both the Mumblecore school and its ambient hype, they have coaxed a more palatable style from that movement's core of strident naturalism. They build self-effacing stories from off-handedly naturalistic moments, the assembly of which serves an organizing theme. Tough to pull off and magical when it works, moment-based filmmaking is intrinsically opposed to plot -- to machinations of any order -- and aggressively favors the spontaneous over the crafted, evoking the narrative satisfactions of a three-act structure as if by a sort of ingenious accident. The Duplass brothers are determined to remain true to their eccentricities and equally bent on breaking into the big time, and their struggle manifests itself quite nakedly in the curious case of Cyrus, their third film and also first to feature a cast of well-known actors.
The movie opens with an unexpected intrusion (similar to last year's Humpday, in which Mark Duplass starred) that moves the story into gear: Jamie (Catherine Keener, set on extra dry) lets herself into the home of her ex-husband, John (John C. Reilly), a freelance editor whose work hours allow for random adventures in masturbation in the middle of the afternoon. Determined to get her ex at least speaking to another woman before she marries Tim (Matt Walsh, weary disapproval personified), Jamie insists that John accompany them to a party where eligible females will be roaming free. Unmotivated and radiating a kind of inverted desperation ("I'm in a tailspin," he admits to a virtual stranger), John quickly assumes the role of "that guy" at the party -- the one who gets deliriously drunk and winds up taking a whiz on the back patio. It's in that moment -- his second such exposure that day --that John meets Molly (Marisa Tomei), an unflappable single mom who will accept an outdoor party-whizzer as potential dating material.
Despite his character's clear distress, Reilly is wonderfully responsive in these scenes, channeling the gentle, often deadpan observational humor that the Duplass brothers made a kind of home-grown specialty in their breakout film The Puffy Chair. Their seemingly casual choices give the film an improvisational feel: They focus lingering attention on small, unexpected but gratifying moments, like the unbelievable difficulty of getting adults to dance at a party, and the way one person's validation can bring a whole room onto the side of the designated weirdo. In this case it's Molly who offers that validation, first on the dance floor, and shortly thereafter in John's bed.
John is rapturous over this turn of events and not about to hide it, and after their second date he follows Molly -- who has a tendency to bail in the wee hours -- back to her home. Lurking in the bushes once again, John is confronted by Cyrus (Jonah Hill), a watchful and provocatively voluble young man who is quickly revealed to be Molly's son. With bruised eyes, and a snug cap of hair perched atop the fleshly avalanche that is his frame, Hill cuts a hilariously adversarial figure. And yet Cyrus strives to project jovial normalcy -- even warmth -- with John, disarming him (and later his mother, with whom he shares an unhealthy intimacy) with psychobabble panaceas that conceal his rage. "You deserve someone who can love you in a way that I can't love you," Cyrus tells Molly, and her unfazed reaction -- while very funny -- is also part of the problem with her character: Nothing really fazes Molly, not penises on patios or clearly pathologically invested sons; she just doesn't seem to notice. For a film so deeply committed to its realist aesthetic, her character is a casualty of the struggle to balance closely observed human behavior and a broad situational premise.
It's fascinating to watch the directors navigate the tricky course they've set for themselves, particularly when the narrative road splits definitively between black and light -- if exceptionally emotionally attuned -- comedy. It's around that same time that the film's dedicated sloppiness begins to wear. A fly-all-over-the-room vérité style does little to enhance the film's equally turbulent tone: A videographer's assortment of abrupt pans and wonky re-frames seem to suggest a swiveled head or a jerky double-take -- a visceral reaction to the material (Jay Duplass operates the camera, participating as a sort of unseen actor) rather than an artistic rendering of it.
But as John and Cyrus begin their ruthless competition for Molly's favor in earnest, the filmmaking can't keep up with the concept (which recalls Clifford more than, say, Spanking the Monkey). It's a strange thing to watch, even given the consistent reward of sensitive performances and sharp writing. By splitting the difference between the broad comedic force of the premise and its self-consciously shabby aesthetic, the characters, despite their naturalistic presentation, are exposed as curious hybrids -- half human, half type. Like Molly, and despite his ample presence, Cyrus doesn't really cohere as a full-bodied person: In a domestic or blackly rendered farce he wouldn't have to; in a sweetly realized indie comedy, that's a problem.