A battle of wills between two men, both fighting for a woman’s affections. John has been informed by his ex-wife Jamie, with whom he still retains a strong friendship that she is due to re-marry, news that he finds upsetting. In an attempt to both cheer him up and encourage him to get back dating, she invites him to accompany her and Tim, the fiancé, to a party, where after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at interacting with the female guests, he meets Molly with whom he strikes up a conversation whilst urinating in a bush. During this encounter, he hears the old Human League classic ‘Don’t You Want Me’, for which he embarks on an embarrassingly drunken performance as he unsuccessfully tries to encourage the other partygoers to participate. His blushes are spared when Molly joins in, prompting Tim and Jamie to follow suit and soon more guests join in and the party begins in earnest. That night John and Molly sleep together and the next morning, he wakes up to find that she has gone, but not before leaving a note with her telephone number. He later calls and invites her round for dinner, where they both agree that they like each other and again sleep together, but again Molly won’t stay over, saying that her life is complicated. As she leaves, John follows her to her house, where he finds an obese young man by the name of Cyrus, who turns out to be Molly’s 21 year old son. He appears to be an innocent man-boy type that cannot survive without his mother, only for John to discover that it’s all an act and in fact Cyrus is selfish and manipulative, with a determined effort to sabotage John and Molly’s relationship, with John equally defiant in preventing him from being successful. A dark and creepy tale, which is actually quite enjoyable. The directors did a decent job at dealing with separate relationship dynamics without diverting from the actual story arc, making it quite palatable viewing. I am unfamiliar with any previous offering from the directors, enabling me to take an open mind in their reputed quirky style which was retained even though it was a pretty reasonable budget. The continuous shaky camera I found quite uncomfortable, and unnecessary as it really didn’t make any difference to the story, but all the other technical aspects worked well. The performances were all believable. Jonah Hill as the eponymous character succeeded in being very annoying, eliciting no sympathy at all and I found the relationship between John C Reilly (John) and Catherine Keener (Jamie) as the formerly married couple interesting in that they somehow couldn’t break away from each other even though both had moved on. Marisa Tomei seemed to have maintained her niche as a single mother, balancing her love life with her offspring, a la ‘The Wrestler’. A romantic drama without the typical Hollywood feel good factor, it’s a film that may appeal to both male and female filmgoers. © K. Payne (2010)
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