C’MON C’MON Takes A Road Trip
Joaquin Phoenix Transforms With Woody Norman
Joaquin Phoenix stars in Mike Mills’ (Beginners, 20th Century Women) new film for A24, C’mon C’mon. Phoenix plays Johnny, a radio journalist who finds himself the caretaker of his precocious young nephew Jesse (Woody Norman). While on a cross-country road trip, the journalist and his nephew begin to bond. The plot synopsis provided by A24 reads: Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his young nephew (Woody Norman) forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they are unexpectedly thrown together in this delicate and profoundly moving story about the connections between adults and children, the past and the future, from writer-director Mike Mills.
Mills wrote and directed this drama film, which was filmed entirely in black and white. The film also stars Gaby Hoffmann, Scoot McNairy, Molly Webster, and Jaboukie Young-White. The road trip drama currently holds a 91% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on the reviews of 23 critics. Anything with Joaquin Phoenix who is getting to use his lower key acting chops sounds wonderful to me and there is good buzz from Telluride.
This is Mills’ fourth feature film in the director’s chair. His debut directorial effort was the 2005 comedy-drama Thumbsucker, about a teenage boy (Lou Taylor Pucci) who, as the title implies, has a compulsion to suck his thumb. The film, which also starred Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Keanu Reeves, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and established Mills as a writing/directing talent on the rise. He followed Thumbsucker up with the critically acclaimed Beginners, which netted a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Christopher Plummer, and 20th Century Women, which garnered a Best Original Screenplay nomination at the Academy Awards.
C’mon C’mon had its world premiere on September 2, 2021, at the Telluride Film Festival. It is scheduled to be theatrically released on November 19, 2021.
