Don Shanahan
Watching the well-steeped yet tenuous relationship between the main characters in the new road movie Sacramento played by director Michael Angarano and co-headliner Michael Cera calls to mind this notion about friendship fertilized in a poem by Brian A. “Drew” Chalker:
“People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.”
Chalker’s phrase has been borrowed in social and parochial circles for many years to talk about the germination, ebbs, flows, and departures of friendship cycles. The two men of Sacramento are going through this very emotional gauntlet right before our eyes for 90-odd minutes, leading to an ultra-relatable profundity that will garner support and appreciation.
Calling his own number in his second feature manning the director’s chair, Michael Angarano (TV’s Laid and This Is Us) plays Rickey, a spark plug of happenstance decisions floating through his own unconventional Bohemian life. Sacramento introduces him camping in rustic California and wooing a single hiker named Tallie (Angarano’s real-life wife Maya Erskine of TV’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith). At some point, the idyllic time they shared outdoors living free and wild comes to an end, and we’re whisked back to the day-to-day urban grind and landscape a year later, where Rickey doesn’t fit in.
Going through a clear bout of uncertainty and possible depression, he turns to his longtime best friend Glenn (Cera) looking for some hangout time. Glenn is in a completely different place than Rickey. He’s the one who grew up, set himself on a career path, and got married. Glenn is currently a nervous wreck as an expectant father preparing for the arrival of his first child with his partner Rosie (Angarano’s former squeeze Kristin Stewart, glowing with a prosthetic baby bump).
With a hint of dislike and feeling his own anxiety grow, the last person Glenn wants to see right now is Rickey. It’s mentioned that their friendship has been reduced to the point where they see each other, formally or informally, about once a year or even less, right around mutual birthdays. With a listening ear from Rosie, Glenn wonders why he still keeps Rickey around. That said, Rickey is a very convincing person and one of Glenn’s only true friends, making it easy for Rickey—thanks to and extra vouch of encouragement from Rose—to get Glenn to take a six-hour-plus road trip from Los Angeles to the state capital “City of Trees.” A less-than-truthful excuse of spreading his dead father’s ashes adds a sprinkle of guilt and shame.
Observing this uneasiness in Glenn and the uncommitted behavior of Rickey in Sacramento really puts their friendship under a fascinating microscope. Their respective long-standing roles as the enabler, the proverbial bad influence, the corresponding responsible one, and, for both, a buddy to confide in become clear as their conversations and spats continue. As Rickey keeps extending the road trip into more stops and misadventures, including a night drinking and picking up some wrestling roommates (former WWE superstar AJ Mendez and up-and-coming actress Iman Karram), Glenn’s initial desire to cut bait and give up on his clingy and ne’er-do-well friend lessens. At the same time, Rickey finds the push to mature ever so slightly after having some of his mistakes exposed.
Balancing the adventurous sweetness and the aged sourness happening in Sacramento is made possible by the chemistry between the Michaels of the picture. It’s a pleasure to watch Michael Cera, bringing a patchy beard and a furrowed brow of worry to his signature mousy dialogue delivery, float between a personal place of disparity to one of rediscovered levity. His wet blanket dries in the California sun to find the better place he sorely needs (and we root for).
As a lesser marque name than his Sacramento co-stars—who have clearly come with collegial pleasure to do their friend a solid in getting a worthy indie film off the ground, Michael Angarano wrote himself a plum part and ran with it. He’s the stick that stirs the drink in a spotlighted position, and the semi-midlife crisis obstacle course of anxiety runs through him. Honest with all of the flaws on display, he makes his Rickey character lovable and endearing.
On the surface with this plight of male buddies, Sacramento may look like a poor man’s A Real Pain which just earned Kieran Culkin the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Happily, by staying stateside and smaller in its aims, Angarano’s film has an entirely zestier vibe. These are two men who, simply put, need to chill, and the stakes and environment reflect that, right down the blended new school and old school soundtrack supervised by Zachary Dawes and Sally O’Connor and “Old Betsy”— the unabashedly stylish late model beige Chrysler LeBaron convertible with the beaded seat covers and aftermarket Pioneer radio that transport our men on their resurgent jaunt.
When it’s all said and done, there’s a bigger truth as to why Rickey is pulled to the city of Sacramento, leading to why he needs Glenn. When the denouement of Sacramento arrives, our gentlemen—not without a pair of physical scrums—arrive at a new set of priorities that connect their differing perspectives. Up to that point, we wondered if these two could make a future purely from clinging to their storied past. In Sacramento, a realization point is reached that extends what was a shaky season of their friendship into something that could last longer and stronger.
