Review of Cyrus (2010) by Shiira — 11 Aug 2010

He calls her "mommy"; he is Frank Booth(Dennis Hopper), a very bad man who calls Dorothy Valens(Isabella Rosselini) mommy during a game of sexual role-playing. Frank is the "baby", and "baby wants to f***", to Jeffrey's horror as he peers through the closet slats, while the gas-huffing baby exerts his will on Dorothy.

Jeffrey(Kyle McLachlan) is privy to the secret pecadillos of men and women he was never meant to see. While Molly(Marisa Tomei) may not wear blue velvet, she wears the burden of being manipulated by a man with psycho-sexual tendencies; her son Cyrus(Jonah Hill), a twenty-two-year old man who tricks his mother into thinking he's still a baby.

Does baby want to f***? Maybe. As a visitor(or by the son's estimation, an interloper), John(John C. Reilly) can only hazard a guess as to the man-child's motivations when Cyrus slips into the bathroom while his mother showers.

At some level, albeit a non-sexual one(we think), this familial unit fosters an intimacy that promotes the potential for transgressive conduct between adult and adult child, as demonstrated when Molly, prior to the uni-sex occupancy of the lavatory, looks more like Cyrus' lover than mother when she dances her way through the front door, unaware of John's presence on the couch.

Molly is Cyrus' muse; she inspires his music and photography. The main reason that Molly goes to the party may be her realization that their close relationship could be on the verge of consumation. At the park, passersby probably see Molly as a "cougar", especially when John and his girlfriend(played by Catherine Keener) sit down for a picnic with their new friends, who seem more in love than anybody else in the movie.

If only "Cyrus" had the intestinal fortitude of a film like David O. Russell's "Spanking the Monkey". Molly's heart-to-heart with her son could have turned into an admission that he led him on(that's what the moviegoer sees, but "Cyrus" doesn't acknowledge), but as its written, the mother merely takes responsibility for Cyrus' arrested development.

Cyrus, after all, is in love with Molly. The last time we see the young man, he's headed for the garage, the potential site of a suicide attempt, like in Billy Wilder's "Sabrina".