Cherry was never really focused on college and despite meeting Emily who he believes is his true love he decides to enlist in the army as a medic and is sent to Iraq. On returning from the war he is suffering with PTSD causing his life to spiral out of control and turning to drugs and then crime.
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Cherry is told to the viewer in chapters which is never really a big problem, however the nature of the chapters and the very different changes just feel too quick and too much for a film. With a running time of 2 hours and 22 minutes which feels so much longer without a whole lot of good going on. I seriously felt this would have worked so well as a limited series as you could really delve deeper into the character and the different moments that changed him and put him further on that downward spiral.
Instead we get a messy film which feels extremely long and rushes through different events as if they are nothing, although I know that sounds strange with something that feels so long also feeling rushed. Hopefully if you have seen the film. you can understand that a little bit better than I have put it across.
Cherry was robbing a bank when we first see him and from that moment we are shown his life in flashbacks starting with when he was in college and had a girlfriend at a different college after first seeing Emily one day he believes that she is actually the one and that he does not really like his girlfriend. So that changes and he falls in love with Emily. His group of friends aren't really the best and you could see the potential for him to fall even at that point. Emily suddenly tells him she is leaving to go to a different college far away, breaking up with him and breaking his heart. Not taking that well at all he signs up for the army, only for her to tell him she isn't going anymore.
That was the first moment that really annoyed me, what a bitch Emily is right? I mean he signed up to the army because of what she was doing to him?!?! Then to make it even worse they then get married before he goes, after that everything hits even more of a downward spiral. Neither of them are likeable characters that is for sure. However, I still held hope that this point after he came out of the army and the PTSD I thought this would highlight the issues many former soldiers have and need to try and deal with. I really did not feel that was accomplished, it managed to just about show the lack of support they are given and how easily they could become addicted to drugs.
Emily ends up a junkie alongside Cherry and they really were never good for each other at all. I guess we could easily argue that if she had not said she was moving away then none of it would have happened would be very harsh, considering she almost comes off worst. But that was the place the film pushed me to as I constantly was hoping it was almost finished.
I have been quite the Tom Holland fan over the years and I really do believe he is a good actor, however in this it felt as though he was trying to push away and leave behind the more child/teen actor phase of his career and in doing so ended up overacting and being a little bit too much at times. I have seen a lot of hype surrounding the scene where he was sat in the car and quite frankly that didn't really do anything for me. The other side could be that they were trying to push hard for awards season as well. Ciara Bravo didn't really offer too much either but I guess it wasn't really her fault or Tom Holland's for that matter, always a struggle when two lead characters have nothing nice going for them.
I originally had the film down as two stars but given the way I have gone in this review changed to the one star as I don't have anything positive to report back about it. Actually that feels too harsh, I guess Holland did have a couple of impressive moments.