(2010) Needy, lonely, depressed, "borderline desperate" seven years after a divorce he didn't initiate, John (John C. Reilly) eventually accepts an invitation to a party, urged on him by Jamie (Catherine Keener) - "You've gotta get out of the house" - his closest friend and ex-wife, who has just informed him of her intention to marry her fiancé Tim (Matt Walsh).

Cranked up with vodka Red Bull, after spilling his raw feelings to any available woman, he falls back on plan B: "Get more drunk." As he's urinating into the hedge, Molly (Marisa Tomei) strikes up a conversation by offering praise for his tool. Amazed that a hot chick out of his league would take an interest in him - "I'm like Shrek" - he runs off (with apologies) when he hears his favorite song, "Don't You Want Me, Baby," by the Human League. In bed with her that night, he tells her: "You're a sex angel."

The next night when he invites her over for dinner and tells her in his vulnerable and honest way how much he likes her, she answers: "My life is really complicate right now." Admitting she's interested but unable to spend the night, she isn't married or a secret agent, just the single mother of a 21-year-old obese son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), whom John meets in the morning after stalking her.

Up front and personal with plenty of close-ups, directors/writers Jay and Mark Duplass place John like the upright middle digit in their quirky romcom between a pair of couples, the odd link of connectivity or shaded area of Venn diagrams between relationships.

When Cyrus discovers John snooping about, he invited his mother's new friend inside, plays some of his original music from his studio, until Molly enters. At dinner in answer to Cyrus's inquiry as to who or what John is, the older man says he's a freelance editor who'd been in a long tailspin before going crazy over Molly.

Spending the night, John takes note of a few oddities: Cyrus goes into the bathroom while Molly's in there taking a shower, bedroom doors are left open, and in the morning his white Adidas sneakers go missing. John asks Jamie to accompany him on a jog in the park for an "accidental" encounter with Molly and Cyrus where she can evaluate the mother and son's weird closeness of hugs and hanging on each other.

Cyrus tells his mother: "You deserve somebody who can love you in a way I can't love you." But the child who for too long has had his mother all to himself turns into a manipulative monster with the adults - telling John in the middle of the night, after drawing Molly away from her bedroom with night-terror screams, that his mother thinks "you're coming on a tad too strong," and then informing Molly in the morning that John left early because he wanted to slow down the relationship - by playing head games with his competition to make John appear in an unfavorable light.

In a battle of keen psychological wits, John seems to have the upper hand with Cyrus until an incident at Jamie and Tim's wedding leaves John pleading: "Open your eyes, Molly." But the ending - what about those shoes? - will leave you guessing again.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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