We’ve seen variations on the themes of Sacramento before, but thanks to a willing and able cast that includes Michael Cera as the anxiety-ridden Glenn and director/co-writer Michael Angarano as the free-spirited Rickey, this take on the road-trip comedy deals with weightier issues and goes to darker corners of self doubt and fears about the future than similar works. The two men were college buddies, but Glenn has made it clear to his pregnant wife Rosie (a wonderfully grounded performance by Kristen Stewart) that he’s trying to phase Rickey out of his life.
The two haven’t seen each other in quite a while, so it’s a surprise when Rickey shows up at Glenn’s home looking to steal him away for an L.A. to Sacramento road trip so that he scatter his recently departed father’s ashes. Rosie is actually thrilled at being without her overly anxious husband for a couple days and encourages him to leave so she can actually get something done. In an earlier scene, Glenn finds a slight looseness in the crib he’s just assembled, and he shakes it so hard he destroys it and has no memory of doing so. There’s a good chance Glenn could be a danger to someone at some point in this film, and we wait with baited breath for him to fully snap.
Rickey is just more a man-child, avoiding responsibility at all costs, including a potential relationship with Tallie (Maya Erskine, Angarano’s real-life partner), whom he met about a year earlier, slept with, and never talked to again, but does want to reconnect with at some point on this journey. Good luck with that, buddy.
Glenn and Rickey instantly find ways to get on each other’s nerves—one is too uptight and practical, while the other is reckless in the name of fun. I loved seeing these two actors let go like this; their banter is fun, but their personalities aren’t just quirky—they are signs of something much darker and broken inside each of them. The women are the stabilizing force for both, in different ways, and I loved a moment in which Rosie tells Glenn that she doesn’t care about some trivial thing that has left him off-kilter because he needs to get his shit together before their baby arrives. The moment is funny, believable, and, above all else, necessary and perfectly timed.
The road trip forces both men to confront their issues, past mistakes, and fears about what fatherhood may bring into their lives, and after a year or so time-jump forward at the end of the film, I felt weirdly satisfied that everyone was where they were supposed to be.
This is Angarano’s second feature as a director (after 2017’s Avenues), but Sacramento is a more mature look at adult coming-of-age, pushing through anxiety, and admitting when one needs to seek out help in moments of crisis. The film can be quite silly, except when it’s not, and I completely loved that tone.
The film is now in theaters.
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