Cyrus

"I know! Let's make a movie about a couple of ugly, doughy dudes."

"John C. Reilly!"

"Yeah, and that Jonah Hill kid."

"That's pushing the definition of doughy."

"Roll with it. OK, how do we get people to go see it, then?"

"We need some hot, to counteract the doughy."

And so it came to pass that Marisa Tomei co-starred in Cyrus, a movie about a broken-hearted man who finds the woman of his dreams, and her goofy, manipulative, adult son. Or so I like to imagine it, anyway.

Cyrus is a low-key, low-budget movie, which has some of the uncomfortable intimacy of a Woody Allen movie, some (but not much) of the zaniness of a Will Ferrell movie, and moments that are occasionally dark and are-we-supposed-to-be-laughing-at-this type stuff.

I didn't put it together, but this film is by the Duplass brothers, whose last feature, Baghead, I reviewed a couple of years ago. My reaction to this film is much the same: It's good in parts, well-worn in others, awkward in other parts, a little slow at times, but short and ultimately pleasing.

The Boy and the Old Man both liked it, the latter more than the former, I think, as he felt the resolution was reasonably just.