The Movie
A divorced loser (John C. Reilly) meets the pretty, totally cool single mom of a loser son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), in this dark, independent comedy. Cyrus is a home-schooled, aspiring musician who has grown to be rather twisted and manipulative, useful traits since most of the people in his life are so modern and healthy and open, at least on the surface. He's almost immediately butting heads with mom's new beau, and I was soon reminded of another Reilly movie, the crass but extremely funny Step Brothers with Will Ferrell. (Alternative title here: "Potential Step Father"?)
The humor this time around is a lot more subtle though, with some disturbingly real oddball characters and an undercurrent of general weirdness, and yet so much of the structure is fairly conventional. Like mom's new boyfriend moving into your old room, this fusion of styles isn't necessarily a good fit.
Also check out Lexi Feinberg's review of Cyrus.
The Picture
As is now commonly the case with lower-budget indies like Cyrus, the movie has been shot on digital video, which brings a very faint harshness to the quality of the 1.85:1 image and a slight quirkiness to the motion. Detail is more than ample if not lush, although there is also video noise from time to time, sometimes severe. Blacks however are above average in the amount of nuance they reveal.
The Sound
The presentation of music in various scenarios is a recurring theme of sorts, defining much of the style and mood of the movie. Bass is surprisingly good, as when we're given the impression of booming dance beats off-camera in one early scene. Elsewhere, the tune-age at a party is realistically mixed across the front channels, although I repeatedly checked to hear that there is virtually no rear-channel activity in this so-called DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. That being the case, it's remarkably convincing considering this self-inflicted handicap.
The Extras
There are two deleted sequences, in a curious higher-than-DVD-bitrate MPEG-2 (like some of the other content), each with a standard-def filmmaker introduction. There's also an eight-minute Q&A with directors/writers Jay and Mark Duplass (SD), a "Music Mash Up" with Reilly and Hill, and a quick peek at the SXSW music-and-film festival in Austin, Texas. In truth, these are a little too casual to be very engaging for the serious home viewer. We're also given a pair of "Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character with..." clips for the two leads, in SD. The disc supports BD-Live, with Fox's Live Extras.
Final Thoughts
I can't imagine watching Cyrus more than once, frankly, but the digital video and strong front-channel mix assure a pleasant-quality rental, and you might want to poke around the extras before you return the disc.
Product Details
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