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Cherry brings three MCU veterans together for a heartbreaking drama. The Russo brothers enlisted Tom Holland to take on the role of the titular Cherry (watch trailer, runtime: 2:42), a US army medic who returns from Iraq with severe PTSD. His prescribed medicine leads him and his wife to addiction, which then leads him to rob banks to sustain their addiction. The film is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel of the same name.

There is an overtone of dark humor threaded through the film, though sometimes — and perhaps purposefully — they seem jarring in the face of the bleak situation Cherry finds himself in. As Cherry sits in the doctor’s office, about to be prescribed the OxyContin that upends his life, the plaque on the doctor’s desk reads “DR. WHOMEVER.”

That’s how the film operates — with constant but subtle commentary on itself,sometimes to the point of compulsion. Maybe that’s why it sometimes seems that the film is struggling to express something much darker and more in line with the novel’s brutal honesty.

Yet Holland sticks the landing, maintaining his streak of pristine dramatic performances following his Spider-Man fame. He is instantly believable as a well-intentioned but supremely lost young man caught up in forces beyond his control, though the last part may have been honed in the MCU (minus the CGI and corporate-driven schtick that is all too familiar now).

You can find Cherry on AppleTV+.

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