CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland-born directors Anthony and Joe Russo could’ve done anything they wanted after their last film, “Avengers: Endgame,” wound up becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time.
They chose to come home.
The brothers spent several months in late 2019 shooting “Cherry” in Cleveland. The movie, starring Tom Holland (”Spider-Man: Far From Home”) and in theaters on February 26 and on Apple TV+ on March 12, is set in their hometown and based on a book by a fellow Clevelander, Nico Walker. The directing duo’s younger sister, Angela Russo-Otstot, co-wrote the screenplay.
But neither geography nor working with and close to family was the primary reason the Russos made “Cherry” their first post-Marvel film. For them, it was all about the source material. Walker’s semi-autobiographical novel is centered on a young Army medic who returns home from the Iraq War with undiagnosed PTSD, becomes addicted to opioids and starts brazenly robbing banks to support his habit.
“The book spoke to us so powerfully,” Anthony said during a recent Zoom call with Joe, Angela and cleveland.com. “We felt very emotionally motivated to make the movie. On a personal level, we’ve had friends and family members who have had problems [with opioid addiction]. But we also knew it’s an issue that is still raging and hasn’t been properly addressed yet. So, we also felt an external need to tell a story about the opioid crisis.”
But getting the rights to the book was tricky. Warner Bros. and Sony were also interested. Negotiations with Walker were complicated by the fact he was in prison and had a restricted amount of minutes he could spend on the phone. The Russos, however, were determined and eventually secured the deal for $1 million, Deadline reported.
“This story is incredibly personal to us. We’ve suffered at the hands of the crisis as a family and with our friends as many people have throughout Ohio and the Industrial Midwest,” Joe said. “In a lot of ways, Ohio and the Industrial Midwest are ground zero for this. Also, we have children who are Gen Z-ers and it feels like Gen Z is on the frontlines of this crisis.
“We really just wanted to tell a very truthful story as we knew it, as we’ve experienced it and as we’ve felt it with people very close to us,” he said.
That personal connection is one of the reasons why they asked Angela, a former writer on the television series “The Shield” and “V” and now president of creative at AGBO, the Russo brothers’ production company, to pen the script.
“I shared the same response to the book that Anthony and Joe had, particularly being from Cleveland and specifically the same pocket of Cleveland that a majority of the book takes place,” she said.
For Angela and co-writer Jessica Goldberg (Netflix’s “Away”), adapting a novel that relies so heavily on internal dialogue for the big screen was no easy task. Communication with Walker was limited. He was still serving time and turned down an offer to be involved in the film.
Still, the screenwriters were determined to retain the raw, unflinching and uncomfortable tone of the novel, while creating a sense of empathy towards Cherry, whose actions and decisions don’t always make him the most sympathetic protagonist.
To accomplish this, Angela said, they implemented several narrative techniques -- dividing the story into chapters, using Walker’s own prose in Holland’s narration, breaking the fourth wall and presenting Cherry’s world as he sees it, not necessarily as it actually is. Walking the neighborhoods where Walker lived and wrote about -- places like Larchmere, Coventry and Little Italy -- aided in the process, too.
“We knew immediately it was necessary to get Jessica on a plane to Cleveland so I could show her all these places,” Angela said. “It really just helped to illuminate the textures of the world, so that we could be sure to incorporate that to the best of our ability within the script.”
The result is a tragic story with a foreboding sense of despair along with a streak of dark humor running through it. But how do you make audiences want to see that movie?
To pull it off, the Russo brothers knew from the beginning there was only one person who could play Cherry: Holland, who they directed in his Marvel debut in “Captain America: Civil War.”
“There are some challenging things about the movie,” Anthony said. “But we really wanted to make it accessible. So, we needed to find a way to balance the film and Tom really did that. He’s so likable, so charming and so rootable despite playing a character that makes some very questionable life choices.”
“We’ve loved Tom since the minute he walked in to audition for Spider-Man,” Joe added. “He really beat himself up for this role physically and emotionally, working with ex-addicts and talking to soldiers who are struggling with PTSD.
“He really put himself in that headspace for months. It was a difficult part for him and we couldn’t be more proud of the work he did in this film,” he said.
Finding a strong female lead to star opposite Holland was equally important. His character experiences a lot of bad in the movie, but at the heart of it, the film is a love story. To play Emily, Cherry’s wife, the Russos cast Ciara Bravo, the 23-year-old actress best known for her role in the Nickelodeon series “Big Time Rush.”
“She’s an incredible discovery,” Joe said. “It’s a very difficult role and not glamorous at all, but she was fearless.”
“She’s also fellow Ohioan from Cincinnati, so that was nice,” added Anthony. “She certainly understood the milieu in a very sensitive way.”
Indeed, “Cherry” is unlike anything the brothers have made before-- a gritty human drama with Tarantino-esque panache. The film is two-and-half hours of gut-wrenching storytelling about a young man scarred by the horrors of war and drowning in the desperation of addiction. It’s graphic and unsettling to watch at times, but you remain invested thanks to Holland and Bravo’s vulnerable, deeply moving performances. Don’t be surprised if you’re an emotional wreck by the time the credits roll. That, Anthony said, is kind of the point.
“We wanted to be very authentic to the experiences [of PTSD and addiction]. We didn’t want to sugarcoat it, we didn’t want to treat it with any less severity than it deserves,” he said. “Because those experiences are harrowing.”
Still, the Russo siblings, all three of them, took great care in making sure the underlying message of the film is a positive one.
“It was important to us that there be a sense of hope in the film,” Anthony said. “No matter how bad things get, there is some way to move forward.
“Those steps aren’t easy. They don’t fix everything. But there is a chance to have a better tomorrow,” he said.
“Cherry” premieres in theaters Friday and on Apple TV+ on March 12.
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