Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is a radio journalist who is traveling the country talking to young people about their view on themselves, their dreams, ambitions, fears, and overall thoughts about the society that they will one day inherit.  He is called back home to California by his sister Viv (Gabby Hoffmann) who needs someone to look after her nine-year-old son Jesse (Woody Norman) while she attends to the needs of her bipolar husband Paul (Scoot McNairy).   

C’mon C’mon is a thoughtful rumination on life written and directed by Mike Mills for A24.  The film is framed by these interview segments of which Pheonixand Mills went around the country to interview real people about their actual thoughts.  The authenticity truly comes through in these scenes and helps to navigate and complement Mill’s own thesis for the film.  It is very pleasant to watch as Pheonix is not at all condescending with the subjects, and he truly seems to be enjoying the assignment. 

Narratively, Pheonix is in one of his most tender roles since Her (2013) for Spike Jonze.  He perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being thrown into the unknown yet having to put on the appearance of having it all together as the new father figure for Jesse while his mother is away.  Watching the two of them size each other up and learn to live with each other is the driving force behind the film, and their chemistry is great.  Like a good actor, Pheonix is a listener and an enabler allowing his young co-star to really shine in his debut performance, but there are times when the veteran seems truly surprised at the choices made by Norman and he reacts in stride making them a magnetic duo on screen. 

Norman, as mentioned, is a real scene-stealer in all the best ways.  His wide eyes are always taking in everything around him and while the camera never physically drops to his level, the camera movements always allow us an idea of what he is seeing.  His excitement as he uses Johnny’s recording equipment is a pure, unfiltered shot of dopamine and no acting is needed on his part to show us that this kid – both Jesse and Norman – is having the time of his life in those scenes.  He does not shine just in his exuberance, but he taps into more complex emotions with great skill.  The script would be a challenge for any actor requiring moments of fear, shame, anger, and sadness which Norman all handles with a surprising virtuosity for his age. 

The final major performance of C’mon C’mon is Viv.  She has a real challenge as her character is impossible to nail down into any specific narrative category.  At once she is very supportive of her son, but she also adds a lot of tension to his life, too, though through no real fault of her own but rather as a byproduct of the stressful and unfortunate circumstances that initiate the whole film.  It is an impossible situation for anyone, and Hoffmann portrays the wits-end mother with great vulnerability while never crossing the line into the realm of “woe is me” helplessness.  Her frustrations are all very valid, and when she cracks, we feel fully sympathetic to her struggles, but the other side still rings true, and we celebrate with her in the moments of victory.  While Mills’ script is almost unnecessarily mean to Viv, Hoffmann never loses her grip on the character and her resiliency makes for an incredible performance.   

What is truly unique about Mills’ latest is how the framing device helps to inform and guide our own introduction to the characters at the heart of the film.  He bypasses the typical exposition around his characters and instead teaches us everything we need to know through the lens of how the other characters view each other.  We learn all about how to handle Jesse through Viv’s conversations with Johnny.  In the same way, we learn about Viv through Jessie’s protests to Johnny that he is not doing certain daily rituals the same way his mother did back home.  Finally, we learn about Johnny through the questions Jesse asks, and while many times Johnny just waves off an answer or changes the subject, we begin to form a greater idea of the siblings’ dynamic more in those moments of interrogation than we do in the flashbacks that haunt the film.  The entire first half of the 110-minute film is forcing us to reexamine the lens through which we are seeing the characters and thereby injects this age-old odd-couple story arc with new energy and life. 

C’mon C’mon works far better narratively than it does as a piece of philosophy, but its unique composition helps to compensate for its elementary messaging.  It should not need to be stated that children are people and they, in their experience of the world, have come to their own conclusions and realizations about their surroundings that have just as much depth as adults’ do.  While the interview segments are interesting, Mills’ employment of them here creates an echo chamber of supporting evidence for an argument that has already been proven.  Feelings are valid.  C’mon C’mon is a charming and tender examination of that fact, but because it does not add anything new or profound to the conversation it can feel more like an exercise in futility when it is all said and done.