The Baltimorons (2025) Review: Jay Duplass Turns an Obnoxious Character Into a Surprising Romance

The Baltimorons (2025) Review

Directed by: Jay Duplass

Written by: Jay Duplass, Michael Strassner

Starring: Michael Strassner, Liz Larsen

Release Date: September 5, 2025

Jay Duplass’s Baltimorons (2025), starring Michael Strassner and Liz Larsen, starts off grating but transforms into a funny, heartfelt romance. Here’s why it won me over.

First Impressions: Ready to Walk Outt 

About 20 minutes into Baltimorons, I was ready to give up. The lead character, Cliff, struck me as obnoxious, whiny, and deeply off-putting. But I stuck with it, partly out of duty as a reviewer—and I’m glad I did. To my surprise, Baltimorons gradually won me over, morphing from an irritating character study into an unconventional but charming love story about a recovering alcoholic and his emergency dentist.

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Michael Strassner’s Cliff: A Man on the Edge

Michael Strassner stars as Cliff, a man six months removed from a failed suicide attempt. After his belt snapped during the attempt, he found sobriety in A.A. and walked away from his improv career, assuming he could no longer perform without alcohol. Cliff tries to reinvent himself as a mortgage broker, complete with a fiancée and family obligations.

On Christmas Eve, however, a fluke accident sends him scrambling for an emergency dentist. Enter Dr. Didi (Liz Larsen), the only one willing to open her office that night. After fixing his tooth, her kindness extends to helping Cliff when his car gets towed. By this point, I was practically yelling at the screen for her to walk away from this grating man.

Cliff is intially so whiny and unlikable that I wanted to walk out on the movie. It's remarkable how much I loathed this character. I was thinking that there was nothing the movie could do to redeem him, especially if he was going to continue down the road of being whiny and entitled. 

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When Baltimorons Finds Its Heart

But then something shifts. As Cliff and Didi spend more time together, the movie begins to evolve into a comic romance. Through late-night conversations, stories of trauma, and shared vulnerabilities, Cliff becomes more human—and Didi’s growing affection for him begins to feel believable.

One standout scene takes place at Didi’s ex’s Christmas party. Pretending to be her boyfriend, Cliff uses his improv skills to highlight her successes, win over the crowd, and defuse awkward attention aimed at her. For the first time, Cliff shows genuine warmth and support, and the film finds its spark.

Another key moment arrives when Cliff finally returns to the stage. Pulled into a sketch performance, he brings Didi with him, showcasing his sharp wit and comedic instincts. It’s both funny and awkward, but it proves Cliff’s talent and hints at the man he could be when not buried under insecurity.

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Liz Larsen Grounds the Film

While Strassner’s Cliff undergoes a gradual transformation, Liz Larsen anchors the film as Dr. Didi. Her performance is natural, unpredictable, and authentic. She doesn’t feel like a scripted “movie character” but like a real person reacting in the moment. Her grounded presence allows Cliff’s evolution to feel believable rather than forced.

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Final Thoughts: From Frustration to Affection

By the end of Baltimorons, I realized I’d gone from wanting to write a scathing review to genuinely rooting for these characters. Jay Duplass, along with Strassner and Larsen, crafts a story where redemption comes not from dramatic transformation but from small, revealing moments. Cliff doesn’t change overnight; instead, his better qualities slowly surface, making his relationship with Didi unexpectedly moving.

I began this film convinced I would hate it. I ended it loving the characters, laughing at their awkwardness, and believing in their connection. Baltimorons may not be easy to like at first, but stick with it—the payoff is worth it.

Movie Review: Cyrus

Cyrus (2010) 

Directed by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass

Written by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass

Starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener

Release Date June 18th, 2010 

Published July 4th, 2010 

John (John C. Reilly) is the consummate modern lonely guy in Cyrus. We meet him when his ex-wife, and unfortunately, his only friend, Jamie (Catherine Keener), catches him furiously pleasuring himself to internet pornography. This may not be the first time this has happened as instead of running away forever, Jamie stays to tell John she is getting married.

Jamie then forces John to attend a party the following night with her and her new soon to be hubby (Matt Walsh). With their encouragement John grows increasingly drunk and pathetic until finally he is caught peeing in the bushes outside the party. Thankfully, this latest humiliation is saved by Molly (Marisa Tomei) who, instead of being horrified by John's drunken behavior, somehow finds it charming. She saves him again a few moments later from a serious party foul and even has the guts to sleep with the guy.

Is Molly some kind human Lottery ticket ready to pay off with unending patience, warmth and understanding? It sure seems that way until the all too smitten John meets Molly's 22 year old son Cyrus who still lives at home and, as John quickly discovers, shares an entirely unwholesome intimacy with his mommy. No, there is no sex involved but when he seems to join her in the shower while John waits in the bedroom, the discomfort is of a creepy sexual fashion.

”Cyrus” is a comedy that thrives on discomfort for the characters and the audience. Our sympathy for John has a healthy layer of pity. Our feelings for Cyrus are more fearful than pitying, the way one regards a man on a bus mumbling under his breath. Cyrus may look harmless but his particular affectations are more than a little terrifying as is the way far too many people have grown used to it and are better able and willing to overlook it. 

From the character perspective you cannot help but find “Cyrus” effective, you feel everything these characters project in a painfully awkward fashion. The directors, Mark and Jay Duplass (Baghead, The Puffy Chair) attempt to mimic the awkwardness of their characters in their film style to far less effect. The style is, I'm told, mumblecore and in this incarnation it is a lazy mishmash of digital handheld photography and a script left mostly blank; supposedly for improvisation but more likely out of a general, hope for the best, negligence.

Thus my personal conundrum; do I like “Cyrus” or not? I'm not sure. I'm no fan of the film style but these characters, as assembled by this top notch cast, are undeniably effective even at their most repellent. John C. Reilly's pathetic sad sack develops astonishing romantic chemistry with Marisa Tomei's warmhearted savior.

And then there is Jonah Hil as Cyrus, a role that is as repellent as it is intended. You know Hill is effective when his Cyrus actually renders Tomei's mommy character unattractive, a feet of Herculean creepiness. This is easily Hill's most challenging role to date and he rises to the challenge allowing Cyrus to be something more than merely frightening, like some low budget horror creep with mommy issues, but a more complexly off-putting type. 

Now, before you accuse me of wanting every movie to look and feel the same, let me state that I have no issue with Mumblecore as a whole. Rather, I just have yet to see this style be effective on screen beyond being merely different. There is something highly pretentious in this low budget movement, as if it were trying to shame us all for enjoying movies with bigger budgets and better known filmmakers.

A great cast in a not so great movie, “Cyrus” is oddest disappointment of 2010.

Movie Review Table 19

Table 19 (2017) 

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz

Written by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass 

Starring Anna Kendrick, Wyatt Russell, Stephen Merchant, Lisa Kudrow, Craig Robinson 

Release Date March 13th, 2017

Published March 29th, 2017

Undoubtedly someone will relate to the idea of being invited to a wedding where they are not expected to attend. At least, that is what the producers of the new comedy “Table 19” would like to think. The premise here is that several people have been invited to a wedding where they were just expected to pick a gift off the registry and send that in with their regards. Instead, each of these oddballs decides to attend the wedding and wind up at the table of misfit guests.

Anna Kendrick stars in “Table 19” as Eloise, the former Maid of Honor turned pariah after she was dumped by the Best Man who is also the Bride’s brother, Teddy (Wyatt Russell). Eloise has backed out of the wedding several times since the breakup only to show up on the day of the wedding with everyone concerned she might make a scene. To mitigate her potential meltdown, Eloise is placed as far away as possible, at Table 19.

Joining Eloise are a random assemblage of guests including Jerry and Bina Kepp, (Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow) business acquaintances of the Bride’s father, Jo (June Squibb), the Bride’s former Nanny, Renzo (Tony Revolori) an awkward teenager, and Walter (Stephen Merchant), a business associate of the Groom’s father. Walter is fresh out of prison and hoping no one knows about his prison stay or how he got there; why he came to the wedding or was invited is anyone’s guess.

“Table 19” has the appearance of a movie but not the story of a movie, at least not a good one. At times the film feels like each actor was given one idea for a character and then told to improvise some comic situation. Unfortunately, despite a very talented and game cast, no one, not even the lovely Anna Kendrick finds much beyond one note to play and that one note is rarely ever funny.

Stephen Merchant is a very funny and talented man but his Walter is an absolute comic dead zone. Walter’s one note is that he is just out of prison and hoping no one notices. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to lie properly so he keeps stumbling into awkward and contrived conversations that the makers of “Table 19” apparently believed were hilarious. They are not hilarious, tedious is the more apt description as Merchant plays the same awkward gag over and over until you wish his character would just leave the rest of the movie alone.

Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow have a slightly different problem, they are way more interesting than the one note characters they are given to play. As a married couple seemingly headed for a breakup, Robinson and Kudrow at times seem to border on a much better movie, a more European style character comedy where we might explore their marital problems with a wedding in the background. I kept dreaming of that far funnier movie while “Table 19” forced Kudrow to carry one joke through the movie, she has the same color jacket as the catering staff. Ha Ha.

And finally, there is Kendrick who should be the star here but is instead treated as a member of a wacky ensemble. Unfortunately, that ensemble isn’t funny or even all that interesting while Kendrick is her usual appealing self, her charisma and beauty calling for our full attention while the film forces us to endure her one-note table mates to ever more unfunny situations and dialogue.

I had high hopes for “Table 19.” Anna Kendrick, to me, is a genuine movie star and I wanted to see where she might lead this story. Sadly, the wacky, one note ensemble strands her in the role of straight-woman to a group of terribly unfunny side characters. There is a very funny Anna Kendrick wedding comedy trapped inside of “Table 19” trying to get out but is entirely thwarted by the filmmakers. 

The Bride's parents were right, these wedding guests should have just stayed home.