"C'mon C'mon" and "The Lost Daughter"

A pair of movies about parenting today.  Minor spoilers ahead.

"C'mon C'mon" is the latest from Mike Mills, a gentle, warm-hearted film about the relationships between parents and kids.  Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is a radio journalist who is traveling the country interviewing children and teenagers about their thoughts on the future.  His nephew, nine-year-old Jesse (Woody Norman), is a handful due to his oddball personality and difficult family situation.  Johnny is supposed to be looking after Jesse for a few days, but a few days turns into more than a few.  Then Johnny has to travel to New York, so he takes Jesse along with him.  

"C'mon C'mon" is a film of intimate conversations and poignant observations, shot in beautifully composed black and white.  So much of the film is just watching Jesse exist in the frame, his irrepressible energy constantly disrupting Johnny's life and the world around him.  Johnny doesn't handle the sudden responsibility of childcare well, though he tries the best he can.  We get to listen in on several of his phone conversations with his sister, Jesse's mother Viv (Gabby Hoffman), who is trying to help Jesse's troubled father Paul (Scoot McNairy) through a mental health crisis.  The two talk about Jesse, and eventually about the past events that lead to Johnny and Viv falling out for a year.  

It's wonderful and life-affirming to watch Johnny eventually learn all the little rituals of parenthood, to reconnect with Viv, and to watch his interviews with a variety of kids across the United States.  The kids are mostly worried, but ultimately hopeful about the state of the world, and Mills quietly makes the case that the rest of us can be too.  Joaquin Phoenix's performance is very natural and very open, letting him show his age and his softer side.  Woody Norman as Jesse is just about as aggravating as he should be, and comes across as a very genuine kid.  Their onscreen relationship is rewarding to watch, but I think what I appreciated the most about "C'mon C'mon" is the comforting mood it evokes.  Times are tough, but there's a lot of love to go around.  It's a pleasure to simply watch the characters care about each other, and try to help - even if they make some mistakes in the process.     

"The Lost Daughter" is a very different animal, a psychological drama about a woman on holiday in Greece, who finds herself contronting old questions about her life and choices.  It's largely a study of its central character, Leda, played by Olivia Colman in the present day and Jesse Buckley in flashbacks.  Directed by Maggie Gyllenhall, the narrative seems to be low stakes on the surface, but becomes utterly engrossing.  Like "C'mon C'mon," the film is about the difficulties of parenthood, but it's outlook is far less rosy.  Leda's quiet vacation is disrupted by the arrival of a boisterous, overbearing Italian-American family.  One young woman, Nina (Dakota Johnson), has a three-year-old daughter who briefly goes missing.  Nina seems overwhelmed by motherhood, which prompts Leda to look back on her own difficulties raising two young daughters while trying to advance her academic career. 

    

What I appreciate so much about "The Lost Daughter" is that it never tries to explain, or even really delineate its themes and issues.  A major source of tension is Leda's impulsive act of stealing a doll, and the audience is left in suspense as to what she's planning to do with it, what prompted her to do such a thing, and whether it might signal more troubling issues.  None of these questions are really answered directly, but Olivia Colman's performance does so much of the work of getting us into Leda's head, helping to show the emotional and psychological forces that drive her.  Through Leda, Gyllenhall looks at the darker side of motherhood that is rarely discussed - the exhaustion, the frustration, the impossible expectations, and the guilt that comes with trying to maintain any kind of independent life.  My read on Leda  - and it's very open to interpretation - is that she considers herself a bad mother, and she's fascinated by Nina because she exhibits the same kinds of feelings.  

"The Lost Daughter" is Maggie Gyllenhall's directorial debut, and she has absolutely no trouble with the tone or the material.  She's especially good at capturing tension - all those subtle little ways that seemingly casual situations can escalate or deescalate, and how certain innocuous behavior can come across as alarming or threatening.  It's a very small production, but it's nice to see Colman and Johnson really getting to sink their teeth into some challenging roles. 

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