Joaquin Phoenix reads a bed­time sto­ry in the first trail­er for C’mon C’mon

With fes­ti­val sea­son now in full swing, trail­ers have been mate­ri­al­iz­ing at a more pro­lif­ic clip as dis­trib­u­tors and stu­dios jock­ey for the public’s atten­tion on their major releas­es. One such title comes to us from A24 and writer/​director Mike Mills, return­ing to fea­ture film­mak­ing for the first time in five years.

Today brings a long-await­ed look at Mills’ ten­der and well-reviewed dra­ma C’mon C’mon, his fol­low-up to 2016’s 20^th Cen­tu­ry Women. Like that film and its pre­de­ces­sor Begin­ners, the new one focus­es on a makeshift fam­i­ly unit find­ing solace in one anoth­er from a world that can be big and intim­i­dat­ing for a way­ward young man.

In this case, that’s pre­co­cious Jesse (Woody Nor­man), sent to live with his uncle John­ny (a griz­zled Joaquin Phoenix) as the two embark upon a cross-coun­try work trip. He makes a liv­ing as a radio host inter­view­ing kids about their opin­ions on the world, and so as they make their way from Cal­i­for­nia to New York with what appears to be a stopover in New Orleans, he thinks about what promise the next gen­er­a­tion holds.

To the strains of Isao Tomita’s ren­di­tion of ​‘Clair de Lune’ – its extrater­res­tri­al ambi­ence and sub­ject mat­ter befit­ting the bed­time sto­ry about an alien John­ny reads to lit­tle Jesse – Mills shows off some of his soft­ly shad­owed black-and-white footage, a strik­ing choice evok­ing Alexan­der Payne​’s Nebras­ka, anoth­er dead­pan road trip. Amer­i­ca looks time­less, or per­haps stuck in time, like each shot is a vin­tage road­side photograph.

C’mon C’mon just made its world pre­mière at the Tel­luride Film Fes­ti­val, and will soon mosey east­ward to play at the New York Film Fes­ti­val lat­er this month before a the­atri­cal run lat­er this fall. For Phoenix, this will be his first onscreen appear­ance in a cou­ple years, since his Acad­e­my Award-win­ning turn as the Jok­er – it’ll be nice to see him scal­ing back for a more ground­ed, human role.

C’mon C’mon will come to US cin­e­mas in November.