CYRUS: not what you think but better

What I liked most about CYRUS is that it didn't do what I expected it to do.

Consider the facts. The film stars two comedians - John C.Reilly and Jonah Hill - in a story about John (Reilly), a middle aged loser in love who miraculously attracts an attractive single woman, Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. She falls hard and heavy for him and everything goes swimmingly until he discovers her guilty secret. She has a 21 year old son, Cyrus (Hill) still living at home and the two are - well - unnaturally close to one another. And Cyrus doesn't appreciate the new man in his mom's life.
It sounds like the perfect set up for a film full of slapstick comedy and gross-out incest jokes with John and Cyrus getting ever more physically violent with one another as they battle for Molly's affections. But that's not exactly what happens.
Directors Mark and Jay Duplass have created that rarest of creatures - a dramedy that keeps the viewer constantly off-balance by refusing to deliver what's expected of this scenario and offers up instead something entirely more satisfying.
I don't mean by this that the story veers off on some bizarre tangent because it doesn't. It really never strays from the straight and narrow, yet it remains unexpectedly fresh and subtly surprising. Both Reilly and Hill demonstrate a depth and restraint in their performances which allows us to believe in them as credible characters rather than simply comic creations. Neither of them exist just to get a laugh. Tomei also surprises as the mom who finds herself torn between her son and her beau. She resolutely refuses to do the things that mom's do when they find themselves in this situation in a Hollywood drama.
In short, nothing about CYRUS is predictable. If you're expecting a wacky comedy you'll be sorely disappointed, but if you're looking for a comedic breath of fresh air this is most definitely the film for you.