Cherry review – IGN

Avengers: Endgame’s Joe and Anthony Russo, who have now spent the majority of their film careers in the MCU’s trenches, change gears for a brooding, sulky dive into the sick mind of Cherry’s trauma and addiction, highlighting star Spider-Man, Marvel’s Friendly Neighborhood, Tom Holland. But Holland’s fascinating and anti-Peter Parker turn here isn’t enough to save Cherry from having trouble passing. Based on Nico Walker’s semi-autobiographical novel, Cherry tells the story of an introspective guy Holden Caulfield, from from a tough one – the Cleveland area, who joined the Army after a bad break-up only to end up badly destroyed by his overseas war experience as a medic. He crashes into his medal-adorned home with very little recourse other than escaping via heroin – then a bank robbery to support this horrific lifestyle loop.

The movie itself is separated into named chapters, like a book, and that helps chop the story into more digestible chunks, but that never completely stops Cherry from falling into a repetitive rut of feelings and themes. Drug addiction is a heavy topic and the movies about it can be a thick wall to chisel out. Cherry isn’t offering anything new or tightening up her execution for the sake of brevity. So the end result is, well, nothing that you haven’t seen acted out in other movies about maladjustment, anxiety, and drug use.

As mentioned, the acting is pretty convincing here. Most of this falls squarely on Holland’s shoulders as he’s not only the leader but also the narrator and a fourth wall breaker. Nothing happens here outside of Holland’s grasp as he’s in pretty much every scene, and when he’s not in a moment, his voice still dominates.

Most of the sad characters who revolve around Holland’s unnamed character (though he’s supposed to be “Cherry”) feel too eccentric and ornamental, as they’re always seen through his eyes, and he’s a borderline sociopath. The one exception is Ciara Bravo’s Emily, Cherry’s longtime partner, who ends up meeting her insanity halfway and tearing herself to pieces in the process. The Bravo screening is a good second here, but overall the film is still the awkward Dutch wagon to shoot.

The nifty gateway for Cherry is that she comes from the directors of some of Marvel’s most complicated and rewarding films, starring arguably the friendliest MCU actor. But it’s a whole different story and the MCU star delivers the goods in an Oscar bait role that’s a far cry from what most people are familiar with with him.

Once you get through all that strap (heh), there are some really good things in Cherry that can exist on their own. This can sometimes offer quiet devastation. It’s just that, all lined up, it’s a job that needs to be reduced. It’s ambitious, of course, but putting together multiple stories, each of which could be its own movie, really hurts a lot.

Cherry certainly has a distinct vibe, which is darkly comical at times, and it’s definitely a welcome and ambitious diversion for the Russos and Holland, as the latter says he never wants to stop playing Spider-Man but also wants to. playing someone other than a teenager (The devil all the time, Unexploredetc.), but the film regurgitates a familiar story (several, in fact) while stretching things to a sometimes disconcerting degree.