Review: ‘Cherry’
Tom Holland delivers a haunting, searing and devastating performance but even he can’t save Cherry from ultimately amounting to a grating, off-putting and uneven mess of a movie.
Even though Cherry is Joe and Anthony Russo‘s eighth feature film, it very much feels like a directorial debut.
In many a ways, it is a re-introduction of sorts for the duo, who spent the bulk of the past decade under the employment of Marvel Entertainment, where they directed four films, including Avengers: Endgame, which is currently the highest grossing movie in box office history. One can’t blame them for wanting to flex their filmmaking muscles across a wide variety of genres, which they frequently do in Cherry, switching between tones and genres relentlessly in a way that will undoubtedly give viewers whiplash. Unfortunately, they never manage to find the right tone for their film, which ends up coming across like an exhaustive exercise in overindulgent filmmaking.
Based on the true story of Nico Walker, Cherry centers on an aimless young man (Tom Holland) who decides to join the army after his girlfriend Emily (Ciara Bravo) breaks up with him. After undergoing extensive training to become a certified army medic, the young man (who is never identified by name) is sent to Iraq, where he develops PTSD after a series of traumatic experiences. The young man develops a drug addiction when he eventually makes his way back home, ending with him resorting to bank robberies in order to sustain his destructive lifestyle.
For the duration of Cherry‘s exhausting 141-minute runtime, the Russos manage to throw everything but the kitchen sink at audiences in the hopes that something will stick. Odd visual cues, dream sequences, sudden cuts and jarring tonal shifts; the filmmakers relentlessly attempt to drum up some sort of reaction from viewers but in the process, will end up largely alienating them instead. Odd stylistic choices aside, the film also suffers from a lack of originality, with the Russos borrowing elements from a wide range of films such as Saving Private Ryan, Requiem for a Dream, Goodfellas and Heat, ultimately creating a grating and off-putting mess of a movie that ends up amounting to nothing by the time the film reaches its rushed and sudden ending. The Russos do eventually settle into a steady rhythm in the film’s third act, which contains some of Cherry’s most memorable and effective sequences, but by then, it is way too late for the film to truly make any sort of impact.
Despite its many shortcomings, there is still much to admire in Cherry, including its sensitive, harrowing portrayal of trauma and addiction, and a series of impressive supporting performances from Ciara Bravo, Michael Gandolfini and Jeff Wahlberg. The film’s main draw, however, is Tom Holland’s phenomenal performance. The actor has a series of fantastic performances under his belt, including his impressive turns in The Impossible and The Devil All the Time, but this is his best so far, with Holland diving into deep and emotional places in order to emerge with a haunting, searing and devastating portrayal of the impact PTSD and drug addiction can have on a person. It is truly a brave, fearless and breathtaking performance, one that may have netted him his first Academy Award nomination if Cherry was a better film.
Unfortunately, even he can’t save the film from amounting to a grating, off-putting and tedious exercise in indulgent filmmaking; the Russos attempt to display their range as directors throughout the course of the film’s towering runtime but ultimately they end up only showcasing their lack of vision and artistry instead.
Rating: 2.5/5
Cherry will be released in theaters on Friday, February 26 before it is released on Apple TV+ on Friday, March 5.