REVIEW Cherry
The latest team-up between the Russo brothers and Tom Holland is an ambitious misfire.
At 141 minutes, Cherry is shorter than any of the Russo brothers’ three preceding movies, and yet it feels so much longer. It’s overwritten and overdirected, consistently trembling under the weight of its own self-importance, the product of two directors who appear to have bought into their own hype, chiefly that highly overused trailer descriptor “visionary”.
For the past few years, the Russo brothers have been the subject of online ridicule for the references they cited for their Marvel movies, but once you moved past the headline hyperbole and actually read their comments, they made sense – saying, for example, that Antonioni’s use of color influenced a specific aesthetic choice in one section of Avengers: Endgame was not meant to suggest the latter was the superhero version of Red Desert.
Additionally, their multiple small-screen stints on Community showed a deep understanding and appreciation of various styles and genres. But those references were rooted in stories that still knew how to put the emphasis on character and emotion, to go along with the formal flourishes. Cherry, on the other hand, wears its influences on its sleeve – a pinch of Scorsese, a touch of Kubrick, a tiny bit of Danny Boyle – but forgets the emotional core along the way.
Tom Holland, in between big budget roles, plays the eponymous protagonist, an army medic with PTSD who resorts to robbing banks to finance his opioid addiction. The appeal of the role is obvious, especially for a young actor who has largely been stuck in blockbuster territory for the past five years (outside of Marvel, Holland’s main gigs since 2016 have been voices for animated features), and is therefore hungry for smaller, meatier material. And he is the best reason to watch the movie, which is otherwise a meandering slog.
Each shot is filled to the brim with ambition, but also crucially devoid of heart and energy. It’s empty posturing, a self-indulgent attempt to justify the “visionary” moniker outside of the constantly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. The entire movie screams “Look at me”, in stark contrast with Holland’s performance which is intense but never showy, and the result is essentially a good-looking endurance test, with style suffocating substance at every turn.
Not that style is a bad thing, especially in a project that flirts with genre – as stated above, the main character is a bank robber who suffers from drug addiction and PTSD. But what style is there is drab and lifeless, leaving us only with Holland (and, occasionally, Ciara Bravo as his love interest) as the presumed emotional anchor to pull us into the story. Each attempt at sincerity comes across as an annoying detour, a distraction from the voiceover, slow motion and intrusive soundtrack that constantly try to tell us how to feel, over the course of two very long hours.
Without these excesses, Cherry could easily merit a spot alongside the other recent titles to have been made through the Russo’s production company, an output that includes the Arabic-language actioner Mosul and the Australian horror film Relic. In its current form, however, it reads like a vanity project whose main goal is to add prestige to the Apple TV+ film library. Mission not so accomplished.
Cherry (USA 2021, 141 minutes)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Writers: Angela Russo-Otstot, Jessica Goldberg, based on the novel by Nico Walker
Producers: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Jonathan Gray, Matthew Rhodes, Jake Aust, Chris Castaldi
Music: Henry Jackman
Cast: Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, Jack Reynor, Michael Rispoli, Jeff Wahlberg, Forrest Goodluck, Michael Gandolfini, Damon Wayans Jr.
Distribution: Apple TV+ (streaming)