Built on conversation rather than incident, C'mon C'mon (2021) follows a journalist and his young nephew through an unplanned stretch of weeks that quietly reshapes both of their lives.
What is C'mon C'mon about?
Johnny makes his living with a microphone, travelling from city to city to record interviews with children for a documentary project. His sister asks him for a favour: her son Jesse needs looking after while she stays close to the boy's father, who is in the middle of a manic episode brought on by bipolar disorder. Johnny agrees, expecting a short stay. Instead the arrangement stretches, and he ends up bringing Jesse along on the job, out of Los Angeles and into unfamiliar streets, hotel rooms and recording sessions. Jesse is bright, curious and unpredictable, the kind of child who asks the questions adults would rather sidestep, and Johnny, who has never been responsible for anyone but himself, has to learn as he goes. Between interviews with strangers and late-night calls home, the film becomes a portrait of an uncle and a nephew working out how to talk to each other.
About the cast
Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny and Woody Norman plays Jesse, and the film rests almost entirely on that pairing. Gaby Hoffmann, Scoot McNairy, Molly Webster, Jaboukie Young-White, Deborah Strang and Sunni Patterson complete the cast. Much of the running time is two people in a room or on a pavement, so the performances carry the story in a way few dramas ask of their actors.
Context & significance
Mike Mills directs. The film sits squarely in the drama category, runs 109 minutes and is an American production from 2021. At heart it is a story about listening: the interviews Johnny collects echo the questions Jesse throws at him, and the adult characters are often less certain of their answers than the children they record. Family obligation, mental illness and the odd intimacy of caring for someone else's child are its central concerns.
Watching C'mon C'mon on Ktime
K-Time streams C'mon C'mon with a Persian dub and with Persian subtitles, so the choice between the original English performances and dubbed audio is yours. You will need to log in with a K-Time account to watch; browsing this page and the rest of the catalogue is open to everyone. The whole experience, from search to the player, runs in Farsi for Persian-speaking viewers living outside Iran.