Bob's Cinema Diary April 14: 'Cherry' and 'Mafia Mamma'

Cherry 

A couple  of weeks ago Cherry, a movie about a 25-year-old woman facing a difficult choice, might not have been acutely topical. But recent court decisions have put the future of abortion pills in doubt and given the movie an unexpected jolt. Maybe not directly, but in its well-observed approach to Cherry (Alex Trewhitt), an unsettled Los Angeles woman who learns that she is 10 weeks pregnant. Cherry has 24 hours to decide on whether to use the pill. If not, California law will require that she wait and have a surgical abortion. Of course, Cherry also can opt to have the baby. It's clear from the outset that Cherry, who works in a thrift store and is devoted to roller skating, isn't prepared for parenthood. Trewhitt gives a convincing performance as an addled young woman who can't bring herself to talk about her situation with her mother, sister, or father. She discusses it with her boyfriend, but he immediately balks at the idea of parenthood. With no guidance forthcoming, Cherry must confront her situation alone. Director Sophie Galibert keeps the tone light but not so light that the seriousness of the issue is lost. Yes, choice can be difficult, but Cherry fortunately has a choice to make: The movie makes you wonder what would have happened had that not been the case.

Mafia Mamma

A mafia comedy with a scenic Italian backdrop. What's not to like? Well, an awful lot about director Catherine Hardwicke's misguided Mafia Mamma, a farcical look at a harried American mom who inherits the leadership of a famous mafia family. In an effort to poke fun at mob-movie cliches, Hawdwicke replaces them with comedy cliches, the most notable being a fish-out-of-water scenario with Toni Collette working hard to turn Kristin Balbano into a woman who’s woefully ignorant about mob tactics. She hasn’t even seen The Godfather, an immediate strike against her, not to mention the source of a few  lame jokes. After Kristin arrives in Italy for her grandfather’s funeral, she receives help from Monica Bellucci, the secretary who served the recently deceased Don. Conflict, of course, arises. The Balbanos feud and fight with the Romanos, another mob family. The movie dines on cliches and stereotypes without giving them enough comic punch to knock them onto fresh turf. Recently separated, Kristin is a horny boss who grows into a crime role that the movie ultimately launders. The movie’s major accomplishment: It may make you hungry for gnocchi, a delight that Kristin craves soon after landing in Italy.

War-time trauma and drug addicition

      In Cherry, the Russo brothers (Anthony and Joseph) make a major  departure from their last movie, Avengers: Endgame. You won't find any superheroes in Cherry, a hard-core adaptation of an autobiographical novel by Nico Walker.

   Spanning the distance from the Iraq War to the inside of an Ohio penitentiary, Cherry tells a story of war-time trauma, post-traumatic stress, drug abuse and desperation.

  Tom Holland plays "Cherry," a former soldier who opens the movie with an account of the bank robberies he eventually commits to feed his massive drug habit. 

  Lame attempts at sardonic humor disrupt the movie’s reality. The banks we see are named "Capitalist One" and "Shitty Bank,” not the last time the Russos will attempt such snarky commentary.

   Best known to moviegoers for playing Spider-Man, Holland has the kind of gee-whiz innocence that lends itself to the character’s steady degradation. 

    Once home, Cherry reunites with Emily, his girlfriend played by Ciara Bravo. He's home, safe and with the one he loves. 

   Things should be great, right?

   Of course not.  Safe to assume that the movie's vividly presented combat sequences are replaying in Cherry's head throughout the movie. As a medic, he saw the worst of Iraq’s carnage but survived his combat experiences by learning how to shield himself from emotion. 

   Eventually, the movie settles into another addiction story as Cherry and his newly-addicted girlfriend stumble through AddictWorld with the Russos serving up more of the movie's seven chapters.

  An early chapter on Cherry’s basic training sets the tone as it attempts to capture the sadism, regimentation, and mind-snapping absurdity of the experience.

   The Russos squeeze a ton of story into the movie, telling us about the uneasy start of Cherry's courtship with Emily, how he discovers OxyContin, and the way Cherry and Emily abandon Oxy for heroin. 

   One of the dealers who supply them (Jack Reynor) goes by the name Pills & Coke. Daniel R. Hill plays a drug biggie to whom Cherry becomes indebted, never a good idea.

   The Russos sometimes succeed in delivering a visceral butt-kicker of a movie, but in its overall arc, Cherry feels an exclamation point on a tale that's been told before. 

    The Russos know how to speak the language of stylized grit and the problems of emotionally damaged veterans remain alarmingly real,  but Cherry can't entirely shake familiarity: One more journey down addiction road.