‘C’mon C’mon’: Read The Screenplay By Mike Mills Inspired By His Own Take On Fatherhood
deadline.comEditors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.“There’s a constantly interesting back-and-forth you have with a child that we rarely talk about,” C’mon C’mon writer-director Mike Mills says. “It can be as light as playing but then it can be as deep as any adult relationship you’ve ever had.”That broad spectrum between loose and playful and soberingly serious drives the dynamic between the A24 film’s two leads.
In the midst of cross-country travels for an ambitious assignment documenting young people’s visions of the future, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), a driven, independent, unrooted middle-aged radio journalist, is unexpectedly thrown into taking on the care of his bright, perceptive 10-year-old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman), which proves both a shock to Johnny’s system and a balm for his soul.“With C’mon C’mon, I wanted to play with opposing scales,” says Mills. “On the one hand the film is about the smallest of moments: giving a kid a bath, talking before bedtime.
On the other, you’re traveling to big cities, hearing young people think out loud about their futures and the world’s future, so the intimate story is happening in the context of a far larger one.
I often feel this same spectrum with my son: our time together is so private, yet the biggest concerns of life are all there.”Mills was inspired by his own midlife foray into fatherhood: “Johnny has to learn everything a parent learns but very, very fast,” he says. “As a father, I’ve found that you feel you’re constantly a novice, trying to keep up as things shift, and this was a way of re-creating that confusion, that always being not quite ready for what’s happening.“
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