Written by Sam Niles
There is a lot of narration in Cherry.
A lot.
A lot a lot.
Whether there’s a genuine shift in the narration quality or if you simply become numb to it, it eventually ceases to become a distraction. But it is a distraction at the start.
Thankfully, that seems to be the film’s only genuine, notable detriment. Oscar bait it may be, but unearnest it is not. The film incorporates different stylized elements that might understandably be seen as glib showboating. But as Cherry progresses, its own slightly-absurdist-slightly-grounded form becomes unearthed.
Once Cherry (Tom Holland) enters basic training for the military, the film shifts to a peculiar ratio (1.50:1) and undergoes a brief formal change, where the image looks slightly grittier but it also shot on on lenses that give it a distorted, centered perspective (I don’t want to say with certainty lest I be wrong and look like a fool, but they look like they were shot on wide angle lenses). It almost looks like if Wes Anderson directed Full Metal Jacket, and it maintains a satirical tone as Cherry mocks his drill sergeants and how disingenuous the whole thing feels. He describes it as though they were all pretending to be in the Army.
It’s the shift back to 2.39:1 that hits hard. That occurs as a fade to a shot of helicopters in a warzone, and the satirical tone gives way to an ominous one, to menace, and any notion that Cherry’s drill sergeants were pretending is gone.
Cherry seems very interested in this kind of contrast, of satirical condescension and harsher reality. There’s a scene when Cherry repeatedly warns his asshole sergeant that he is doing the wrong thing. First, Cherry warns that the road they’re about to take is no good, that vehicles have gotten stuck when they go down this road. When the sergeant doesn’t listen, their vehicle gets stuck. Then Cherry warns that their attempts at removing the vehicle will only make the situation worse. When the sergeant doesn’t listen, the situation becomes worse. The scene is edited to highlight the sergeant’s foolishness, and Cherry laughs with his fellow medic Jimenez (Jeff Wahlberg) at this foolishness.
The comedic factor is thrown out the window, though, when the sergeant and Jimenez are killed in an explosion moments later.
A similar moment actually consists of two scenes, one before Cherry’s time in the military, another after. The “before” moment consists of Cherry contesting an absurd situation with multiple overdraft charges with a darkness-shrouded teller (as if she’s an anonymous interviewee on 20/20). It initially comes across as generic “everyone is dumb except for me” comedy that seeks to make us sympathize with a protagonist. But the “after” scene changes this perception. Because the “after” scene shows Cherry robbing a bank for drug-related purposes and pointing a gun at the same teller. No longer some anonymous figure, she comes out of that darkness and is visible as the scared, flesh and blood human she is.
Cherry manages to balance this smug, cynical worldview where “everyone is wrong but me”, with its harsher reality with almost unsettling finesse. The film has garden variety jerks, tools and plain old meanies, their flaws put under a magnifying glass by our loveable but arguably equally flawed protagonist. However fun it is to mock those flaws, it doesn’t remain fun when the person we’re mocking **spoiler** ends up dead. Even by the end of the film, the “biting satire” seems to be intentionally put in the background: banks Cherry robs have barely discernible logos that say “Shitty Bank,” some hack of a doctor has a “Doctor Whatever” name plaque that’s out of focus.
It’s these little things in particular that make Cherry stand out, because they attest to this notion–despite how over the top and in your face the experience may seem–it’s all very simple, honest, and pure, and as such the directors Anthony and Joe Russo don’t seem to be bragging that they’ve watched the films that have clearly influenced them. They’re merely embracing these influences because they love them, they love the way they’ve influence the story they’re telling, and they love Cherry.
And they want you to love Cherry, too. They hope you love its “political through normalization” stance, where it becomes a “message” movie about addicts and treatment of veterans by simply telling a story about it. They want you to love the vicious, tender and frightened performance from Tom Holland, and the eventual flow once the narration stops distracting.
It’s a long, tough experience that may hit home for a lot of people, but I hope you love Cherry too.
