Let me begin with a confession: I wanted to like C’mon C’mon. I really did. Black-and-white indie film? Check. Joaquin Phoenix with a sad beard? Double check. A road movie about human connection and the fragility of modern parenthood? Triple check with a side of therapy. But then I watched it—and what I got was less a movie and more an extended NPR segment turned into a moving slideshow of artfully framed nothingness. It’s like director Mike Mills read a pamphlet titled “Feelings for Beginners” and decided to turn it into a 108-minute lullaby for the emotionally fatigued.
This film is so gentle, so ponderous, so in love with its own understated profundity that it forgets to have a pulse. It’s not a movie—it’s a vibe, stretched out across America like a soft blanket of whispered emotional catharsis that somehow still leaves you cold.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Johnny, a public radio journalist who interviews kids across the country about the future. You’d think that might lead to something important, insightful, or at the very least interesting, but instead, we get a series of handheld interviews that feel like outtakes from a Ken Burns documentary about ennui. The kids talk about climate change, anxiety, their dreams, and it’s all very meaningful in that vague, Tumblr-core way. Meanwhile, Johnny nods quietly, records them, and somehow looks both tired and confused—like a man who wandered into the wrong Lyft and decided to just go with it.
The story, such as it is, kicks off when Johnny is asked to look after his nephew, Jesse (Woody Norman), while his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) tends to her mentally ill husband. And that’s it. That’s the movie. Johnny and Jesse spend time together. They go to New York, L.A., New Orleans. They talk. They bond. They talk some more. Jesse asks absurdly articulate questions like “Why do adults lie?” and “What’s it like to be alone forever?”—you know, things your average 9-year-old says when he’s not busy being the youngest honorary professor at a liberal arts college.
Jesse is one of those cinematic children that only exist in movies made by people who’ve never spent more than ten minutes with a real child. He’s part prophet, part gremlin, part indie-darling spirit animal. He’s weird, he’s loud, he tapes Johnny sleeping, he stages emotional meltdowns that double as performance art, and he talks like he’s been ghostwriting therapy manuals since preschool. Every line he delivers feels plucked from the margins of a parenting book that also sells crystals.
Phoenix, for his part, whispers through the entire film like someone who’s afraid the furniture might be judging him. This is not a man acting—this is a man soothing. He strokes Jesse’s ego, records the sound of traffic like it’s a religious experience, and delivers diary-like voiceovers that read like fortune cookie poetry: “Life is just this… moment,” or “What if we just listened?” If that sounds deep, congratulations: you’ve been emotionally catfished.
The film’s black-and-white cinematography is beautiful—yes. But it’s also the equivalent of dressing a sleep study in a tuxedo. It doesn’t add meaning, it just signals that what you’re watching is “art,” even if the content is just two people walking around quietly while one of them occasionally shouts “poop” and then asks about the nature of grief.
And then there’s the score. Composed of soft piano tinkling and ambient mood sounds, it’s basically the audio version of watching clouds drift by while someone whispers a TED Talk about mindfulness. The music swells not during emotional climaxes—because there aren’t any—but during moments when the film wants you to feel like something profound is happening, even if it’s just a kid jumping on a bed or Phoenix blinking slowly at the ocean.
The problem isn’t the lack of action—it’s the lack of progress. Nothing changes. No one really grows. Johnny and Jesse go on their little bonding journey, but by the end, Johnny is still sad, Jesse is still weird, and Viv is still calling in via emotional FaceTime to drop exposition like confetti at a sad birthday party. There’s no climax. No revelation. Just a slow, meandering walk through a broken family’s diary that somehow feels like homework for your soul.
And Viv—bless her, Gaby Hoffmann does her best with a role that mostly consists of sighing, crying, and holding phones like they’re ticking bombs. Her entire presence exists to remind us that “mothers carry the emotional burden,” a sentiment delivered with the grace of a Hallmark card read during a colonoscopy.
By the time the credits roll, you’ve sat through nearly two hours of characters whispering, walking, sitting, and exchanging gentle affirmations like they’re passing around a therapy dog. There’s no real conflict. No major decision. It’s just… parenting is hard, kids are mysterious, and life is beautiful even when it’s unbearable. Which is fine. But do you need two hours of Joaquin Phoenix journaling while a child monologues about feelings and urine? Do you?
Final Verdict?
C’mon C’mon is a film that wants to wrap you in a warm emotional blanket, but instead suffocates you under the weight of its own preciousness. It’s earnest, but empty. Beautiful, but boring. Like a meditation app with a beard and an indie soundtrack. Watch it if you enjoy movies where nothing happens, everyone talks like a grief counselor, and kids sound like 35-year-old poets trapped in Converse sneakers. Everyone else? Call your nephew. Listen to him talk about dinosaurs and fart jokes. That’s more honest—and way more entertaining—than this sleepy, monochrome therapy session.