C'Mon, C'Mon (20210

This is a very interesting movie, with a small cast, a small scope, and more introspection than action. Johnny (played by Joaquin Phoenix, demonstrating that he can do more than demonic or debilitated well) is an audio producer asking countless kids their thoughts about the future and their communities. Some are fearful, some are hopeful, some want the world to get along, others just want the world to see them as they are. He doesn’t do much in the way of parallel reflection on his own until he lives with an inquisitive child with his own set of questions. Johnny has little in the way of actual experience caring for kids until he agrees to help his sister by caring for her son Jesse while she tries to get his psychotic schizophrenic father, her ex-husband, some mental health care. Johnny does a pretty good job being equal parts respectful of Jesse as a person and protecting him as a child, and the movie made me reflect on a number of things as each of the characters was doing their own reflecting. I think this is the point, that through the questions, posed both by an adult on the job and a curious child, and gentle pacing, the movie taps into our own memories of when something was happening to our families that we didn’t yet fully understand, but can now look back on them as adults and maybe process what happened.