“I’m an ally to men and I would never take away a feeling from them,” Ayo Edebiri once said on the red carpet season premiere for The Bear. Within context, it’s a cheeky response to the kind off mind-numbing interviews. Out of context, it’s the kind of patience I strive to support the male community’s ongoing challenge against toxic masculinity. You can do it, men!
Toxic masculinity is the surprise villain in Michael Angarano’s Sacramento. At face value, the film seems like a road trip side quest from A Real Pain’s verbal rallying between two men of different personalities, who at times seem envious and in awe of one another. After a year of grief support, Angarano’s character Rickey is still reeling from his father’s death, which had pushed away his close friends and once-lover Tallie (real-life lover/wife Maya Erskine). On the suggestion of a volunteer who recognizes that Rickey is ready (annoyingly so when he takes over leading the group), Rickey should then look for a support system to help him transition back in his normal life.
Having no immediate family, Rickey wants to ask his best friend Glenn (Michael Cera) to stay with him, which is a damn tough ask since they haven’t been in contact for a while. Also, Glenn is not for Rickey’s antics; he complains to his pregnant wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) that Rickey’s sudden presence seems to be no good. For the readers out there who have felt the unbearable tension of friendship-breakups (or even worse, the slow-burn ghosting), Glenn’s complaints are not totally unfounded and may seem familiar. But as he prepares for first-time fatherhood and a possible job layoff, Glenn is actually not doing so great himself. In fact, we see that both Glenn and Rickey are so emotionally incompetent within themselves that when they go on a last-minute road trip to Sacramento, it seems like bad decisions are ahead. It’s also not a good sign when Rickey has to lie to upkeep their friendship, which we can see is falling apart again from the start.
I suppose the signs of masculinity, fragile and vulnerable as they are, show up in different ways. In order to break the awkwardness of their first conversation in a while, Glenn and Rickey do a push-up contest. Despite his anxiety, Glenn agrees on the Sacramento trip because he perceived that they were playing a game of chicken. There is a scene in which the lights dim in a boxing gym and they pretend-wrestle with pathetic physicality in front of two jacked women (one of them professional wrestler AJ Lee). The roughhousing and competitive spirit isn’t really portrayed as jealousy or toxic-inducing, but I fathom that this is a window to how these characters decide to open up to each other when emotions do not. Neither of these men, adorned in patchy neck beards and Teva sandals with socks, seem particularly intentional in challenging the male role in society when they wake up in the morning. However, their incoming status of fatherhood (and the former status of sonhood) makes them confront each other and to one’s self.
It’s easy to tell how personal Sacramento is to Angarano, who is a father (and my bet is that the Michaels’ children make their appearance as uncredited actors). I don’t think being a parent at a time of big uncertainty would make this movie pertain to a specific age and/or a specific life stage. Similar to his first directed/written movie Avenues, Angarano is infatuated with the magic of transformation in unexpected times and situations, and it’s not a bad concept to incorporate the scary territories of being responsible for another human being.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Angarano is quite as captivating in his performance of a character who truthfully is annoying, flatteningly so (turns out that Kieran Culkin has made annoying into a craft!). However, I was surprised that I found myself enjoying Cera and Stewart, both actors who I normally don’t care for. There is a kind of peace in their acting when they are playing characters outside their repertoire. Instead of making self-deprecating comments to make us laugh, Cera has moments of quietness when he can tell Rickey is lying, or a sort of deadpan sassiness when things go awry. And Stewart takes a breather outside the usual main role spotlight, which works for her to combat Glenn’s anxiety. Yes, supporting actress Stewart!
It may have been my demise that I held expectations for what I thought Sacramento was going to be, because to enjoy it, you should let them go. There is an uncomfortable, scrambled speed within the movie’s first half, but I believe if someone watches this when making the same stops and turns, there is a good movie hidden underneath.
Sacramento
2024
dir. Michael Angarano
84 min.
Opens Friday, 4/11 @ AMC Boston Common
