C'mon C'mon

It may not sound like much, but Mike Mills' drama is a rare mix of touching emotional transparency and a thoughtful, intuitive, essay-like structure as it examines how kids fit into the world. Certainly there's a formulaic aspect to the bare-bones plot -- a grumpy single man goes on a road trip with a cheeky, precocious kid (with moptop hair), both of them emerging as better people -- but C'mon C'mon isn't formulaic in the slightest. Shot in dreamy black-and-white, the movie takes its time. There's no destination here, only the journey. Johnny (Phoenix gives his tenderest, most open-hearted performance since Her) coaxes moving answers from the children he interviews, but how to apply that information to life? And how to use it to understand his relationship with Jesse?

In an early scene, Jesse talks about "fungus tubes" that connect everything in nature, and that's a decent metaphor for the movie. There's nothing to do but go moment by moment, as Jesse asks pointed questions, throws tantrums, runs off, plays lovingly, cuddles, and imagines. Johnny recaps and analyzes things in lovely phone calls to his sister, and then each little "chapter" is capped with a reading from some kind of nonfiction essay. (Johnny's personal journals also provide breaks.) The excellent performances -- including those by Norman and Hoffman -- and Mills' fearless devotion to honesty give C'mon C'mon a life pulse. Indeed, the movie is so much like tangled, beautiful memories that it may be difficult to recall the movie in order.