Cherry Review
Despite the wonderful performance of Holland in a different role as an army medic who turns into a drug addict, he cannot save Cherry from his puffed up bone.
Cherry will release in cinemas on February 26th, and via Apple TV + on March 12th.
Avengers: Endgame directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, who have spent most of their careers directing behind the scenes of the Marvel universe, are going to direct the movie Cherry, which plunges into darkness and melancholy into the mind of a person steeped in addiction and trauma, and who stars as friendly neighborhood friend Spiderman himself from the Marvel universe. Tom Holland. But Holland's performance in a completely opposite role to Peter Parker is not enough to save Cherry, whom the viewer might feel struggling to end.
The film is based on Nico Walker's semi-autobiographical novel, as he shows the story of a young man who joins the army after a painful separation but ends up with his experience during the war abroad as a doctor by severely shattering him. He returns home decorated with medals, with few resources other than escaping his reality with heroin, and then robbing a bank to support that horrific lifestyle episode.
The movie itself has been cut into titled chapters, like a book, and this helps divide the story into more watchable parts, but that doesn't stop Cherry from falling into the mold of duplicating feelings and themes. Drug addiction is generally a stressful topic and movies about it can be heavy-handed. Cherry neither introduces anything new nor shortens its runtime for the sake of brevity. So the end result is ... nothing you haven't seen in other films about coping difficulty, anxiety, and substance abuse.
As mentioned, the acting is very compelling here. Most of it falls squarely at Holland's shoulders not only because he's the hero, but also because he's the narrator who breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience. Nothing happens here outside of Holland because he is practically in every scene, and when he is not present at some point his voice is still there.
Most of the characters revolving around the unidentified Holland character (who is supposed to be named Cherry) look weird and flashy, because we always see them through his eyes and he's someone on the border of a sociopath. The one exception is Emily represented by Ciara Bravo, Cherry's long-suffering partner who ended up going crazy in the middle of the road and tearing to pieces in the process. Bravo plays a strong second heroine here, but the movie overall still weighed heavily on Hollande.
The thing that might make everyone want to see Cherry is that it is directed by some of the most famous Marvel Universe filmmakers who have presented some of the most complex and wonderful films, and starring the most beloved Marvel Universe character. It offers a completely different story and the Marvel Universe star delivers an amazing performance that deserves a Oscar nomination far from what we used to be like before.
But once you've bypassed all those complicated nets (right?), There are some really good things about Cherry that hold their own perks. The movie sometimes manages to deliver a very destructive feeling. But the thing is, it is ultimately cumbersome and burdensome that needs to be minimized. It is true that the film is definitely ambitious, but tying several stories together, which could each be its own movie, makes the film passively bloated.
Cherry has a distinct character for sure, which is sometimes a black comedy, and it is without a doubt an ambitious change that is welcome for both the Russo and Holland brothers, as the latter says that he does not want to ever stop playing the role of Spiderman, but he also wants to break the mold of the role of a teenager ( Like The Devil All the Time, Uncharted, etc.), but the movie offers a familiar story (several in reality) while simultaneously stretching things to the point of nerve-racking sometimes.
Conclusion
Cherry has a distinct style and great soundtrack, but its exploration of the dark reality behind the vicious circle of military and addiction seems routine. Holland breaks many barriers here in terms of performance, nicely capturing the role of a sociopath, but the film is stalled and heavy-duty, which generally results in a disappointing mixture of different themes.