MORRIS FROM AMERICA – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

A father and son argue about music to the point that both figures become children in the conversation, as the camera, amusingly poppy, hard cuts in a hilarious way as if to yell “SIT DOWN” every single time a new angle is shown. Then suddenly in a surge of hilarity, one of the “children” grounds the other one for “liking terrible music.” The grounded child makes his way up to his room as the father sits lonely at a table staring into space. Isolated. Suddenly, the father gets up and ungrounds the kid and they go get ice cream. Think about what type of emotions inform a scene like that. First, you have the two leads, headstrong both of them, trying to win the argument through their bouts of witty dialogue. Then you have the sudden punchline coming in as the childish father takes the control by being even more childish. Then you have the sobering as the father realizes that he doesn’t have anyone else then his kid, and then you have the redemption as the father, now all smiles, goes to get the kid from his room. Headstrong, hilarious, sobering and redemptive. The perfect words to describe MORRIS FROM AMERICA.

The headstrong aspect comes in the characters and the editing. Morris (Markees Christmas), a 13-year-old gangster, and his widowered father, Curtis (Craig Robinson) have just moved to Germany for work. Both find themselves at least a little uncomfortable with their new lives and lash back at each other. The lack of Morris’s mother also hints that his father simply doesn’t have anyone to argue with anymore and so he projects his feelings onto the child leading Morris to become headstrong out of necessity. This is a smart way to highlight the excellent character dynamics as is the early cutting style, which in its own ways pops from character to character asserting itself in an almost hysterically violent way.

That’s not all that’s hilarious about this movie. The natures of all of these characters clashing make for dynamic conversations that highlight the pain of growing up. As the story progresses, Morris becomes infatuated with Katrin, a kind of neo-bohemian girl at school. Much of the hilarity of the film comes in the way this plays out as Morris’s behavior gets more and more absurd in order to gain Katrin’s affection. Their conversations are infused with the same childlike stupidity that Morris has with his father, and the dialogue throughout the film is naturalistic but tickling. Much like teenagers do, Morris and his new friends fumble around the concepts adulthood but are not capable of using them correctly all trying to achieve their dreams of hedonism and full exploration of life. It’s amusing to watch them both succeed and fail.

The sobering aspect of the film is there to make sure that the comedy is actually informed by something of tact. There are excellent moments in the film that draw one to thinking that each character holds their own loneliness. Morris, having just moved to Germany and being somewhat introverted desperately wants to associate with Katrin, yet he keeps to his own code isolating him from the world that she is part of, but that’s nowhere near the complexities that the character of his father shows. Multiple times Robinson is required to play Curtis simply sitting on his own trying to deal with the fact that his son is growing to not need him anymore and that his wife is gone and each time Robinson knocks it out of the park. His character is shown usually as the outlier in the real world, and Robinson perfectly communicates both sadness, but also stubbornness. This character desperately wants his son to live a social life but can’t survive without him. As a character, this sober aspect makes him one of the best of the year.

Redemption is something that a lot of movies need. Most movies that start off bad don’t get redeemed and most of them that go wrong don’t come back. Morris From America finds redemption for both its characters and itself. The naturalistic relationships strain a little as the characters evolve, and the sense of place never gets hammered in quite as hard as the most serious aspects of the film should require them too. Morris overall doesn’t really do too much with the gangster rapping that so much informs so much of the film’s early energy. However, the excellent ending does put the film into perspective redeeming much of the small touches of off-kilter-ness around the production.

MORRIS FROM AMERICA is a film of great emotional range. It’s headstrong, hilarious, sobering and redemptive. After a summer of blockbusters that weren’t so good and indies the stood high above the competition, Morris From America is a fine film to start the awards season.

4 of 5 Stars