C'mon C'mon

What is it like to suddenly be put in charge of a kid? It is what American director Mike Mills explores in this beautiful black-and-white drama film. As in his two previous films, 20th Century Women and Beginners, Mills again demonstrates a keen and especially warm eye for the complexities of human relationships. Joaquin Phoenix plays the lead, his first role since Joker.

Radio journalist Johnny (Phoenix) is always on the road, interviewing high school students all over the country about their lives. One day his sister Viv calls. They had fallen out badly earlier and he hasn't spoken to her for a year, but now she needs him: She asks him to look after her nine-year-old son Jesse while she takes care of her mentally ill husband. Johnny of course says yes, and so he takes the boy on his travels around the country. Caring for a child is not easy, but Johnny gradually gets better at it.