Michael Cera & Kristen Stewart in Highway Comedy

In Michael Angarano’s understated buddy comedy Sacramento, a flighty man coaxes his estranged buddy to road-trip with him from Los Angeles to California’s capital metropolis. The drive is a madcap journey dotted with interactions that assist each males untangle the knots of their friendship and confront fears of the long run. 

Ricky (Angarano) and Glenn (Michael Cera) appear extra completely different on the floor. The previous is an eccentric nature-lover who aspires to be a counselor. The latter is a fretful firm man settled into domesticity together with his spouse, Rosie (an ace Kristen Stewart). Whereas Ricky makes fleeting connections throughout backpacking journeys by means of the California forests, Glenn prepares for the delivery of his first baby by developing a $400 crib.

These two males turned buddies as kids, throughout a swim class wherein Ricky nearly drowned Glenn. Their relationship has been fraught for years, and Glenn has been attempting to “section” Ricky out of his life: He not often checks in and doesn’t inform his buddy that he’s having a child. Nonetheless, they share historical past and, whether or not they prefer it or not, a type of emotional avoidance predicated on trepidation about what’s subsequent.

Angarano and Chris Smith’s slight screenplay particulars the connection between Ricky and Glenn simply sufficient to maintain the narrative shifting, however extra info, particularly concerning the two males, would have elevated Sacramento. It’s by means of these anecdotes concerning the previous that an actual story — a prickly account of arrested improvement and the awkwardness of rising aside — emerges out of a set of in any other case participating sufficient conversations and strong comedic bits. 

The movie opens with glimpses of Glenn’s struggles with debilitating nervousness and a type of blinding rage. After discovering an annoying squeak with the costly crib, Glenn rattles the picket construction till it breaks. Later, he struggles to recount the incident to Rosie, claiming to have blacked out. Sacramento gestures at Glenn’s situation all through — typically for laughs — however its severity stays imprecise. Nonetheless, Cera provides a compelling efficiency as a person getting ready to a psychological breakdown. He conveys each bodily and fewer tangible manifestations of Glenn’s nervousness — shaking palms, round pondering and rumination — that assist us higher perceive the depth of the character’s struggles. 

Ricky is a much less risky determine, however nonetheless vaguely sketched. Whereas he is likely to be extra in tune together with his feelings, he’s unreliable. An early glimpse into his life takes place a 12 months earlier than Sacramento’s primary timeline. Whereas on a tenting journey, Ricky meets Tallie (Maya Erskine) and the 2 start a woodsy romance. Ricky proclaims boldly that they need to run away and construct a commune. Tallie stops him: That future may by no means exist, as a result of Ricky would absolutely bail. 

The reality of her assertion turns into clearer as Ricky and Glenn drive north. In an effort to get Glenn on board with the journey, Ricky tells his reluctant buddy that his father died a month in the past and he needs to satisfy the outdated man’s dying want by spreading his ashes within the metropolis. Despite the fact that the 2 are estranged, Glenn concedes.

The guilt journey morphs right into a extra emotionally difficult (and antic-filled) journey the nearer they get to Sacramento. A couple of energetic scenes within the automotive reveal simply how shut Ricky and Glenn as soon as had been. The standout moments in Sacramento spotlight behavioral and conversational quirks of outdated friendships, in scenes that recall the drollness of Joanna Arnow’s latest The Feeling That the Time for Doing One thing Has Handed. 

Ricky and Glenn’s pit stops — a one-night episode involving two ladies, a diner break turned impounded-car fiasco — inch them nearer to uncovering uncomfortable realities about their friendship and getting older. Their talks on the highway, on the bar or sitting throughout from one another at breakfast are the guts of Sacramento, which explores the minor tragedies of getting older. When Glenn tells Ricky he’s obtained completely different priorities, the sentiment is weighted with insecurity and the acquainted terror of realizing that years do actually transfer extra shortly than days.

So it’s disappointing when Sacramento cuts away too shortly from these scenes, padding its narrative with a couple of too many repetitive and distracting hijinks as an alternative of burrowing into the difficulties between Glenn and Ricky. In any case, Sacramento is, at its greatest, about embracing the susceptible insights that emerge from these encounters.