Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Michael Angarano
Starring: Michael Angarano, Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart, Maya
Erskine, AJ Mendez, Rosalind Chao, Iman Karram
The road comedy might be the laziest storytelling format in cinema. You
just need to stick two people who initially don't get along in a plane,
train or automobile and watch the sparks fly; no need to worry about
constructing a plot around them. That said, it's a format that has been
undeniably successful and produced its share of classics. There are
essentially two types of road comedy: the romantic, where two people who
seem to actively despise one another gradually fall in love (It Happened One Night; The Sure Thing); and the platonic, where two usually male characters get under each
other's skin but learn something valuable from each other along the way (Midnight Express; Planes, Trains and Automobiles).
Actor Michael Angarano's directorial debut
Sacramento falls into the second category, sending two
estranged thirtysomething male friends - one uptight, one unstable - on an
impromptu trip to the Californian city of the title. Anagarano casts himself
as Rickey, whom we meet in a prologue as he falls rapidly in love with
Tallie (Anagarano's real life missus Maya Erskine), a
free-spirited stranger he meets on a camping trip. A year later we find
Rickey being kicked out of a grief therapy group for attempting to hijack it
from the counsellor (Rosalind Chao), who advises him to seek help
from his friends. Tallie is curiously nowhere to be seen.
Rickey doesn't appear to have any friends, save for Glenn (Michael Cera), a childhood buddy who has purposely estranged himself from Rickey.
Glenn's wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) is pregnant and Glenn is a
bundle of neuroses at the prospect of becoming a father. When Rickey arrives
on Glenn's doorstep, the latter is emotionally blackmailed into joining
Rickey for a trip to Sacramento when Rickey claims his father just died and
he wants to scatter his ashes into the ocean. That Glenn doesn't question
the fact that Sacramento is nowhere near the coast suggests that he secretly
wants to take the trip, and Rosie is more than happy to be free of his
suffocating presence for a weekend.
Angarano's film loosely follows the road comedy format, though strictly
speaking there's not much time spent on the road. The road portion pretty
much consists of an early montage, with most of the drama revolving around
various encounters the two awkward companions have with Sacramento locals,
including a Five Easy Pieces-esque row with a store clerk and a night spent with two female wrestlers
(short king Angarano writes himself as the improbable object of lust of the
Amazonian AJ Mendez; good for him!).
Early in his career it was often joked that Cera got the roles Jesse
Eisenberg turned down, as both actors cornered the market in millennial,
post Woody Allen neuroticism. It's amusing then to witness Cera in 2025
playing a role we've essentially just seen Eisenberg essay in
A Real Pain, that of the thirtysomething who is simultaneously a control freak and a
maladjusted mess. Angarano is also very much playing the Kieran Culkin part
of the slacker who seems like his life is a train wreck but who possesses a
self-awareness lacking in his buddy.
Sacramento is a poor cousin of
A Real Pain however, largely because
Angarano and co-writer Chris Smith struggle to mould their ideas into
a tight piece of storytelling. It also suffers from its two protagonists
being so initially unlikeable. I spent much of the film's first half rolling
my eyes at Rickey and Glenn as they regressed to obnoxious frat-bros in each
other's company, so much so that I was dreading getting through the rest of
the movie. But like an unwanted travelling companion,
Sacramento gradually wears you down and you start to gloss
over its faults. Sure, the storytelling is sloppy, the pacing imbalanced,
and the movie fails to give its women characters anything remotely
interesting to do (we know why Erskine got involved but how did Angarano
snare Stewart?), but there will be few male viewers of a certain age who
won't uncomfortably recognise something of themselves in Rickey and Glenn.
Most of us have that friend we had to let go because they remained a
teenager while we became adults, and Sacramento recognises the
guilt we feel over it. Angarano's directorial debut is a middling road
movie, but it still achieves the goal of the sub-genre in making us root for
two estranged people to find some common ground.
Sacramento is on UK/ROI VOD from
April 28th.
