“When you think about the future, how do you imagine it will be?”
Audio journalist, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is recording for his latest project, a collection of interviews with young people in urban cities around America, by posing questions about their hopes and fears for the future and their relationships with older generations. C’mon C’mon, the latest project from writer and director Mike Mills, explores many of these same ideas. However, his film focuses on Phoenix’s middle-aged documentarian and the child he is suddenly flung into a relationship with, in a story that is partly influenced by Mills’ own experiences as a parent.
When Johnny receives an urgent call from his estranged sister, Viv (Gabi Hoffmann), he puts everything in his life on hold to travel from New York City to Los Angeles to step in as the caretaker to his nephew, despite his inexperience with being a guardian and his apprehension toward playing the role of babysitter. 9-year-old Jesse (Woody Norman) is a precocious kid, fascinated by peculiar games of make-believe that often include pretending to be an orphan, something his mother halfheartedly goes along with. Viv must leave town to seek help for Jesse’s father, Paul (Scoot McNairy), who is dealing with a worsening psychological illness, leaving behind the unlikely pair of introverts who are each considered outcasts in their own everyday life. C’mon C’mon subsequently becomes a quiet exploration of the complicated ways children and adults attempt to communicate with one another. What starts as a shaky period of trial and error on both sides, slowly evolves into a unique bond where each person can learn something from the other.
Originally only meant to be a few days, Johnny and Jesse’s time together is prolonged as Viv lengthens her stay with Paul. No longer able to postpone more interviews, Johnny takes Jesse back to New York City followed by a trip to New Orleans. He often documents his time with Jesse by using his sound recorder as a sort of personal diary. He even tries to interview Jesse as this is his basis for communication, but Jesse resists playing along, instead turning the mic around on Johnny; a first in a number of reversals in their relationship. As each has expectations of the other that are not met, both are able to find compromise within themselves to form a common ground that is beautifully distinctive to their particular relationship. In New York City, Johnny lets Jesse use the recorder entirely on his own and the pair explore Chinatown through sound. Moments of their shared connection comes from a simple series of knocks on the kitchen table repeated between them and in sweet bedtime moments as Johnny reads from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and other stories as they fall asleep next to one another.
The success of this film hinges on the relationship that is captured between the film’s co-leads, and the credibility that is found in the child performance. Both Phoenix and Norman are doing something special here. Phoenix gives one of his most delicate and understated performances to date while Norman’s ability to shift between a wide range of truthful thoughts and feelings is remarkably rare for a child performance. While infrequently a part of the driving narrative, Gabi Hoffmann’s presence remains that of a mediator, skillfully dealing with her own set of complex feelings and choices regarding the men in her life.
The most evident filmmaking decision in C’mon C’mon is cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s use of black and white photography, which creates a timeless sensibility and captures an unbiased perspective of Los Angeles, New York City, and New Orleans. Along with Detroit where we first meet Johnny, these cities serve as the film’s documentary grounds for the interviews that are interspersed throughout the film’s narrative. While not the first time a narrative filmmaker has incorporated real interviews into their fictional story, this hybrid structure lets each form compliment the other as they work together to make a cohesive inquisition about the world and our place in it.
C’mon C’mon is not a film that asks a lot of questions, so much as it contains a wide breadth of curiosity. It’s about listening to the world around us so that we may become more openly compassionate uncles, nephews, mothers, husbands, friends, and so forth; so we may become more empathetic people. As adults, we sometimes take our relationships with children for granted. We forget that they are our past and our future, not only on the grand scale of humankind, but also in the intimacy of how our individual lives are remembered. If we document our time together and share our memories with fervor, we may continue to relive our relationships even as we are apart.
