Cherry

Watching Tom Holland in the opening frames of Cherry, I couldn't help but feel like I was witnessing a very expensive, very loud identity crisis. After steering the MCU to the literal end of the universe with Avengers: Endgame, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo decided their first major non-superhero outing would be a $40 million, R-rated odyssey through the opioid crisis, PTSD, and bank robbery. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a straight-A student coming home from college with a lip piercing and a "deep" tattoo—you admire the effort to change, but the execution is a bit overcompensating.

I actually watched this on a Tuesday afternoon while my neighbor was power-washing his driveway, and the rhythmic thrum-thrum of the water against the pavement weirdly synced up with the movie’s frantic editing. It was the most immersion I felt all day, mostly because Cherry is a film that refuses to let you just watch it. It demands your attention through a barrage of stylistic gymnastics that would make even Danny Boyle tell them to take a breather.

Stylistic Overload in the Streaming Era

Released at the tail end of the pandemic’s grip on cinema, Cherry arrived on Apple TV+ as a "prestige" offering that felt specifically designed for the algorithm-driven streaming landscape. It’s broken into chapters, each with its own visual language, aspect ratio, and color palette. One minute we’re in a muted, hazy indie romance; the next, we’re in a high-contrast, wide-angle war movie that feels like Full Metal Jacket filtered through a GoPro.

The Russos are clearly talented, but here, they seem terrified that the audience might get bored with a simple conversation. The Russo brothers directed this like they were afraid we’d get bored if a scene lasted more than three minutes without a lens flare or a fourth-wall break. It’s a "Look Ma, no hands!" approach to filmmaking. While the technical prowess is undeniable—the cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel is often stunning—it frequently smothers the very human story at the center. When our protagonist, nicknamed "Cherry," looks directly into the lens to explain his existential dread, it doesn't feel like intimacy; it feels like a director’s note that forgot to stay on the page.

Holland’s Bid for Maturity

The real reason to stick with the 142-minute runtime is Tom Holland. We’ve spent years seeing him as the bubbly neighborhood Spider-Man, and Cherry is his scorched-earth campaign against that image. He loses weight, gains a hollow-eyed stare, and puts his body through the ringer. It’s a transformative performance that deserved a more disciplined movie. He manages to find the pathos in a character who is essentially a passenger in his own life, drifting from a heartbroken college kid to an army medic to a "dope-sick" bank robber.

Beside him, Ciara Bravo as Emily is the film’s secret weapon. Playing the "one true love" in a drug drama is usually a thankless, one-note role, but Ciara Bravo brings a brittle, heartbreaking reality to the screen. When the two of them are spiraling together in a haze of heroin and sweat, the movie finally finds its pulse. It’s in these quiet, ugly moments—free from the "clever" camera angles—where the tragedy of the opioid crisis actually hits home. Unfortunately, the film often pivots away from that raw emotion to give us a bank robbery montage set to opera music.

The AGBO Ambition

Behind the scenes, Cherry was a massive gamble for the Russos' production company, AGBO. They bought the rights to Nico Walker’s semi-autobiographical novel for $1 million while he was still serving time in federal prison for—you guessed it—bank robbery. There’s something undeniably "modern Hollywood" about that: a story written on a prison typewriter being turned into a high-gloss streaming centerpiece.

The film struggles with its own tone, fluctuating between "gritty realism" and "satirical bite." For instance, all the doctors and authority figures are given placeholder names like "Dr. Whomever" or "Dr. Goodluck." It’s a choice that feels like it belongs in a different movie—maybe a Chuck Palahniuk adaptation—and it sits awkwardly next to the very real, very painful depictions of combat trauma in Iraq. It’s basically an Instagram filter for trauma, beautifying the wreckage of a human life until it's "cinematic" but no longer quite believable.

Ultimately, Cherry is a fascinating mess. It’s a film that has a lot to say about the way we treat veterans and the predatory nature of the American dream, but it says it with a megaphone in a library. It’s worth a watch for Tom Holland's commitment alone, and for the way it captures the sheer ambition (and occasional arrogance) of post-franchise filmmaking. It’s not a masterpiece, and it’s certainly not subtle, but it’s a vivid snapshot of what happens when two of the world's most successful directors are given a blank check and a desire to prove they’re more than just "the Marvel guys."