Restraint is a potent and essential force for any filmmaker, ultimately imbuing emotional and dramatic subtext into a film where framing and stylistic choices simply cannot.
Any director can do a grand, sumptuous shot, but it is also equally integral that those choices supplement the story and characters well. The concluding moments of Casablanca could have punctuated with large and epic wide shots, but Michael Curtiz brilliantly opted for intimate and melancholic profile shots of the actors simply emoting, which bolstered the emotional and thematic impact so eloquently.
Directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo have demonstrated this thoroughly and in Marvel movies nonetheless, having helmed some of the most lauded modern superhero pictures with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. I especially saw this skill depicted to electrifying and enamoring effect in their magnum opus Endgame where they prioritized the human drama first and foremost, allowing the characters and actors to occupy the frame and evoke necessary pathos. Their follow-up Cherry, a film chronicling the plight of PTSD-ridden Iraq veteran Nico Walker, who spiraled into a life of drug abuse and bank robbery following his return home, is the antithesis, however.
Unlike in Avengers: Endgame, the Russo Brothers have employed a gratuitously inflated and gaudy style that incessantly compromises the potential weight of the story. The drama here feels so superficial and empty because the directorial sensibilities almost always oversaturate the events taking place on the screen. The film is divided into six chapters, including an epilogue, prologue, college period and war period, with the title of each flashing a lurid red color on the screen that signals a heavy-handed shift in style and tone and constant narration throughout, which is ultimately superfluous and a cheap mechanism to communicate exposition in an already bloated 142 minutes.
From the distorted lens and misplaced close-ups of one part to the exasperating, abrupt shift in ratio change in another to the bombastic music cues scattered throughout, these choices fail to amplify or even efficiently convey the story without distraction that wreaks of self-serving filmmaking. The tones are also extensively unclear and poorly established, never coalescing into a cohesive thread. The film oscillates from surreal to gritty to tragic to absurdist with staggering dissonance (There is literally a POV shot inside an unidentified dark cavern that reveals itself to be part of a rectal exam sequence).
The consistent feeling this film elicits is aggressive repulsion and agitation on several levels. Not only does the style deflate the drama, but it also turns this topical story of burgeoning American depravity and systemic failures into exploitation. This is a film that revolves around the opioid epidemic and immoral treatment of veterans, but these elements appear to be treated as cogs in a tawdry tapestry, reducing these human issues into melodrama that is compounded by the predominantly flatly written characters, relationships and themes.
Tom Holland is this film’s vital saving grace and defies the plucky casting mold that many thought he would be confined to. He deftly balances charisma with inner demons to occasionally engrossing effect that transcends the subpar direction, turning Nico Walker into a sympathetic character in addition to some sporadically competent writing that makes him more than an archetype. Co-star Ciara Bravo, as his long-suffering girlfriend and fellow drug addict, has an interesting screen presence that engages.
Less is often more in almost every pocket of life, and the Russo Brothers seem to have forgotten that paradigm. What could have been an empathetic and tactful film is instead excessively obtuse and thoughtless because of its self-indulgent filmmaking and lack of insights. There is the occasional grand and exhilarating war sequence, tautly executed robbery scene or affecting emotional beat (These are the directors of some of the best comic book movies ever made, after all), but this film upholds quantity over quality and style over substance every time it can, doing its subjects an immense injustice with its fundamentally wrong choices.
Grade: C-
Cherry is now available on Apple TV+.
Photo Credit // Apple TV+
