Up until now, I thought a good companion piece for A Real Pain was Treasure. They’re both films about Jewish-Americans revisiting the Holocaust decades later. Now I see a better companion piece is Sacramento, as both pictures are about clueless beta males wandering aimlessly through life, making random and often incorrect observations to an audience of … themselves.
Sacramento is obviously the lesser of the two pictures as its heroes, Michael Cera and writer/director/star Michael Angarano, both barely pass for functioning adults. It seems fitting that both wear scraggly, unkempt beards as if to insist, “Yes! I am an adult! See?” Reality says the exact opposite is true. I’m certain that was part of the “comedy” here; I’m not certain the intention was for people like me to wonder why I bothered seeing a movie with adult themes being handled by children.
Glenn (Cera) is a father to be. He has anxiety out the wazoo. He’s losing his job and his mind, it seems; the latter we can see from a crib he destroys for reasons we only discover later. His very pregnant wife Rosie (Kristin Stewart) seems to have her act together. It’s obvious to anyone viewing that she could go this adventure alone and lose nothing in the process. That’s how much of a zero Glenn appears to be.
Oh, but there’s worse: Rickey (Angarano) is so far removed from a responsible adult, we are puzzled as to his motivation regarding anything … which isn’t to say he can’t behave as an adult might behave – for instance, he likes to go to group support and help out. And by “help out,” I mean take over the meeting completely, wresting all control from the psychologist/moderator. Again, this is probably seen a comical from a certain POV, but comes off as cringe when he doesn’t let a professional do her job. (Rickey has no degree or expertise of any kind.)
Lacking for friends and inspiration, Rickey shows up at Glenn’s place to “reunite” and proceeds to more-or-less hijack Glenn into taking a 350-mile car ride northwest to Sacramento on the premise that he needs to
spread his father’s ashes in the ocean. Go ahead, you can laugh at that one. We know this is not the real motivation, but we do not discover the real motivation until Act III.
At this point, the film becomes a buddy pic with the mediocre adventures of two manchildren, neither of whom can carry a film … and it shows. I am certain Sacramento is meant to appeal to certain set of men in a state of -dare I say- arrested development. It wants to be an anthem for guys that can’t get their shit together. And maybe it is. Mostly, however, I found it dull and wanted desperately for both leads to come clean. You both have big secrets, just spill already and get this over with.
Like the city itself, Sacramento is clean and dull; a constant reminder that there are better places to be. For me, the better place was the theater next door showing Drop.
Two “friends” named Rickey and Glenn
Went traveling in search of zen
Well, did they? Mo really
But it super silly
To say they needed to grow up again
Rated R, 89 Minutes
Director: Michael Angarano
Writer: Michael Angarano, Christopher Nicholas Smith
Genre: The habits of beta males
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Reluctant adults
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Real adults
