The editor’s note: This review was originally published in 2024 Tribeca Festival. “Sacramento“Opens on Friday, April 11, 2025.
Like someone who is old enough to have seen such as’Superbad“And” Youth In Revolt “When they first opened in theaters, it’s hard not to feel a bit loose in the time when I look at the Millennial Teen icon Michael Cera Make the gradual transition to Dad roles (no, the “Juno” tie hole does not help). I became completely unclear by the fact that he became a father in real life, but there is some kind of fourth-dimensional to see an actor grow up on the screen while their most famous characters remain at the same age forever. It is an ignorantly lively illustration of the scam we all experience as we get older – how can you be on the verge of 40 when you are still 18?
But some things never change, and to get in Tandem with an actor like Cera also reminds you of it as well. Yes, “Superbad” is a high school movie about a pair of besties that can’t bear the idea of being apart, while Michael Angarenos sweetly entertaining “Sacramento“Is a road film about a couple of foreign old comrades whose reunion is fully driven by adult neuroses, but the truth is that these films have more in common than the 17 -year -old gap between them can suggest. – which becomes completely unpleasant by a transition in their lives because they do not know how to trust each other. film Critics: Even Gawky Beta nerds are suffocated by their own internalized masculinity.
If Cera has counted on that reality on the screen since he was little, the character he plays in “Sacramento” will not to it until he is having his own child. It may be because Glenn did not learn to say “I love you” to his best friend before attending different colleges. Or maybe he did it, just to grow up, get married and gradually forget how self -realizing it can be to let you be vulnerable with other men who may understand what you are going through.
Either way, the poor guy has developed into a nervous wreck those days before his wife will give birth to his first child (Rosie is played by Kristen Stewart in a role that corresponds to a glorified como, but she only needs a few minutes screen time to add another layer to “was not just a child,” “time for the whole role of one movie Timevetx of a movie whose whole role has added another layer to “Wasn’t you just a child, yourself!? Not just one child, “Time Vortex of a movie whose whole role has become yet another layer. Glenn freaking about becoming a father while losing his job, Glenn can not even look at the empty crib that they have built in the nursery without triggering a panic attack, and his extremely fucking wife is a bit too deep into” his discomfort.
This may sound like the type of part that Cera can play in sleep, but it is also the type of part that he can only play so well because he has had so much practice; When Glenn spirals out during the film, you can almost feel that Cera is trying to rebel against his screen staff and keep a smooth keel when he is sucked into the hot tub in his character anxiety. Expecting change is a lifelong proposal, and the fact that you have seen Cera do it so many times before I just add more credibility to see him do this.
Rickey (Angarano) comes in a similar problem from the opposite direction. An extroverted slacker who loves to talk other people through his problems (especially when it helps him avoid confronting his own), Rickey has kept his eternal teens in check by wholly responsible for adults. It’s part of his charm. The girl he meets in the film’s prologue is too happy to share a night under the stars with him, even though she laughs with the possibility of a relationship with someone who would obviously the guarantee against her when things got heavy (she is played by the always excellent Maya Erskine, who also happens to be an Angareno’s wife and collaboration in reality).
When the story takes up a year later, Rickey spends most of his time in a psychiatric Los Angeles; His father’s last death probably has something to do with it, but it is also a perfect hiding place for someone who has never wanted to live in the real world. Until, that is, rickey is a bit for Extroverted in Group Therapy, and he is probably apologized from the program with nothing to his name except an old convertible and a SOB story about wanting to spread his father’s ashes in Sacramento. It is enough to convince Glenn not to jump out of the car when Rickey cuts his annual hangout to an improvised 340 -mile long road trip, or when Glenn mumbles under his breath: “An unplanned, long -term driving to a city that I do not know anything about and have no desire to be in.”
Is loyalty to an old friend and/or anxiety to have a child reason enough to spend a day or two away from a wife who could go to work at any time? Probably not, but Glenn’s willingness to indulge in a boy’s trip and rosie’s willingness to let him-are the only pill that is difficult to swallow in Angareno and Chris Smith’s light script, which skillfully penetrates the needle between a hangout-vibe and more high key antique when it makes its way north.
The dynamics between the characters are obviously obviously obvious, as both do what they can to keep the other in the distance (Rickey chooses small white lies while Glenn keeps his mouth closed), but the whole movie and everyone in it lightens into more affecting territory when the boys come to the mutual realization that they were in the crisis. When Rickey Furtively fills an empty jar of tennis balls full of dirt so he can “dump his father’s ashes”, the strained comic vibe has for the first 20 minutes given place for a less forced -and often very fun -series of smart vision and acute serio -comic gestures, some of which even allowed to explode in the real Set Set Set Callahan -song).
In fact, “Sacramento” gets better at such a steady pace that it feels as if Angareno relieves in his confidence in real time. Over the course of a second feature that’s only a hair less modest than his micro-budget debut (2017’s “avenues”), the “Sky High” Star Graduates From Oveager Dilettante to Unusually Shrewd Comic Directo Wouldn’t Dare to Reveal Here, Even Thought It Deepens The Story In Every Conceivable Way – Creates A Sustained Atmosphere of Exasperated Anarchy that allows Rickey and Glenn to intertwine even when one of them completely unaves. Both of these boys must meet to be ready for the next step in their lives (which will not soon be as much as it is already here), but none of them can do it without some help from their friends.
By driving eight a few minutes with credit “Sacramento” never strives to be much more than an incarceration made sketch, but its relaxed nature and external lack of ambitions believe how well it manages to convey the fear that changes in our lives, mania to try to deny it and the relief that comes from admitting that someone else in your world is changing. Michael Cera has offered that gift to Millennials in recent decades (if only used), and Angareno’s film helps to ensure that he will continue to do so as the children in his generation continue to have their own children. That’s the thing with icons: They never really die, but it can still be quite gratifying to watch as they get older.
Rating: B.
“Sacramento” premiered at the Tribeca festival 2024. Vertical Entertainment releases the movie Friday 11 April 2025.
