Cherry
Apple TV+Whilst Apple TV+ technically debuted in time for the 2019-2020 awards season, it is clear that the 2020-2021 season is the service’s coming-out-party, of sorts, when it comes to gaining awards attention for original films with projects like Boy's State and Wolfwalkers already gaining massive traction early in the season. On paper, however, it seemed like Apple's largest release this awards season would be Cherry. Teaming Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo up once again with Tom Holland – this time in a non-superhero setting – Cherry is an adaptation of a novel of the same name which follows a young man named Cherry (Tom Holland) who goes from a wandering young man to being a soldier right at the heart of the horrors of war to a struggling addict holding onto life with a thin string. This seems like a recipe for a captivating and comprehensive look at how life can lead someone down a dark rabbit hole but, unfortunately, Cherry is a near disaster in every sense.
Perhaps the most shocking result with these elements is how purely incompetent Cherry can feel. The Russo Brothers have proven themselves to be skilled directors in the past by creating tone and suspense, but Cherry fails completely in the most basic aspects of filmmaking. Rather than producing a narrative that flows between the various pieces of Chery's life, Cherry seemingly completely changes style about every 5 minutes. It is jarring as the editing from Jeff Groth randomly switches from intimate drama to tongue in cheek comedy to loud, in-your-face portrayal of aggression. The film at no point feels like it comes together into a well-crafted piece for more than 10 minutes at a time. It doesn't help that each of these identities are incredibly flawed in their own ways individually.
The screenplay bounces between being annoying and empty, creating a deadly viewing experience for the film. When portraying toxic masculinity, Cherry takes the most immature and generic route with homophobic slurs and in your face editing around every corner. Outside of these off-putting scenes, Cherry feels incredibly weak and distracting in its use of Fourth Wall breaking monologues from Tom Holland, which feel tone-deaf by giving what should be an emotionally captivating movie a charismatic edge that never really fits. The film itself also just feels empty. It dances with larger themes and social commentaries with subjects like the military, the modern opioid pandemic, and the morality of love; however, the film never finds much of a focus on any of these subjects much less any fresh breakthroughs or thoughts. Ultimately it doesn't feel like Cherry has anything of value to give thematically that hasn't already been said before in drastically more effective ways. These downfalls largely are the reason the film's 150-minute runtime feels as genuinely painful as it does. The movie feels endless in the worst of ways as it slowly crawls to its inevitable conclusion finding hardly anything of worth.
Tom Holland is also quite disappointing here. Whilst it is incredibly exciting to see the young actor take on a more emotionally mature performance that could even propel him into the Oscar conversation, it is clear here that Holland is a miscasting. Holland has proven previously – specifically in Spider-Man: Far From Home – that he has an incredible emotional range, but when asked to step up into a truly tour de force performance that requires a new physicality and intenseness, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Holland is clearly trying his best, but compared to someone like Timothée Chalamet in The King, Holland just doesn't capture this character correctly on a fundamental level.
Whilst it does seem, on paper, like Cherry could have been something special, the final result is near disaster. This is a painful mess of a film that doesn't really have a single truly redeeming quality. Though some aspects like Holland's performance are at least innocent, on a basic level they simply fail to work and captivate the audience in any way. Even with the film being readily available on Apple TV+, it is best to stay far far away from Cherry.
