"Cherry" has style for days and robust work from Holland but little reason to care

Cherry (2021)

Love and war, PTSD, opioid addiction, and bank robberies all make up the showy, go-big-or-go-home prologue, six chapters, and epilogue of brothers Anthony Russo and Joe Russo’s “Cherry.” Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Nico Walker, the film is a sprawling depiction of a life that crosses off being a coming-of-ager, a war picture, an addiction drama, and a crime saga. Showcasing some bold directorial choices outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Russos (2019’s “Avengers: Endgame”) employ nearly every cinematic technique to tell their story, from color filters, shifting aspect ratios, narration and fourth-wall breaking, frenzied drug trips to even a rectum cam (!). Co-written by the brothers’ sister Angela Russo-Otstot and Jessica Goldberg, the script just needed to give the viewer more of a reason to care. 

If “Cherry” succeeds being in the service of anything, it does provide Marvel participant Tom Holland the opportunity to stretch and push himself as our 23-year-old protagonist, who goes unnamed until the credits bill him as “Cherry.” In 2002, the promising young man from Cleveland attends college, where he meets and falls in love with Emily (Ciara Bravo). When she tells him she's transferring schools to Montreal, he enlists in the Army on impulse, until Emily changes her plans. They marry and she waits for him, while he's deployed to Iraq for grueling basic training and to serve time as a war medic. When he returns home from seeing the horrors of war, like putting parts of his friends in body bags, Cherry suffers from PTSD and insomnia. His doctor prescribes him oxycontin, which he subsequently becomes addicted to and then turns both himself and Emily into strung-out “dope fiends” (his words). Struggling to stay in good favor with preppy dealer Pills & Coke (Jack Reynor), Cherry turns to robbing banks to support his addiction and owe debts to the mysterious, face-tatted Black (a never-fully-seen Daniel R. Hill).

Similar to Leonardo DiCaprio proving his early range and credibility in edgy, harrowing fare like “The Basketball Diaries,” Tom Holland can do anything: he can be the giddiest Peter Parker, and then he can go to tough, emotionally raw places as Cherry. In an all-or-nothing lead turn, Holland seems fully up for taking on the roller coaster life of Cherry and poor life choices fueled by desperation and addiction. His phone home to Emily after being scarred by the death of his friend stands out as a palpably hard-hitting moment. Showing how far out of his depth he is, the first few robberies that Cherry commits are even absurdly low-key and inept, as he slides a bill marked in red with the words “I Have a Gun” toward the bank teller. As unflinching and brutally honest as Holland’s work can be, one wishes he or she cared more about the journey they’ve just experienced along with Cherry. Sure, he loves Emily and he can be surly even before hitting rock-bottom with a dependence on heroin, but we know Cherry at the end as much as we knew him at the start. 

“Cherry” doesn't play everything quiet and small because it's not that kind of story. At the same time, it restlessly covers so much ground that it can only really skate the surface. Brothers Anthony Russo and Joe Russo do bring a ton of filmmaking muscle (and excess), none of it exactly subtle but impressive, always interesting, and some of it there to likely leaven the grim material. Aided by Newton Thomas Sigel’s often striking cinematography, the Russos' bag of stylish, hands-waving tricks gets emptied throughout a longish 141-minute running time, but it all makes one feeling a little empty after a while. It does help that Ciara Bravo lends her down-to-earth presence to Emily, Cherry’s love of his life, because for a while she is the one and only beacon of light. Still, like a cherry bomb himself, Holland’s robust performance makes some of this more watchable than it should be.

Grade: C +

Apple TV+ is releasing “Cherry” (141 min.) in theaters on February 26, 2021 followed by a streaming release on March 12, 2021.