REVIEW: Apple TV+ Releases The Russo Brothers’ ‘Cherry’ Starring Tom Holland and Ciara Bravo

This dark, coming-of-age drama, stars Tom Holland as Cherry, and Ciara Bravo as his love interest, turned wife, Emily.

Cherry is produced by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Chris Castaldi, Jonathan Gray, and Matthew Rhodes. Executive producers are Jake Aust, Kristy Maurer Grisham, Todd Makurath, and Judd Payne. The films supporting cast includes Jack Reynor, Kelli Burglund, Michael Gandolfini, Kyle Harvey, Jack Reynor, Forrest Goodluck, Jeff Wahlberg, and Thomas Lennon.

Broken into six well thought-out parts, Cherry follows Cherry, through his life of bad life-altering decisions, and circumstances that ultimately make Cherry stronger in the end. The viewer starts out at the beginning of the end, but in order to understand what brings Cherry to that fateful choice, they have to understand how he got there in the first place. 

Cherry first meets Emily, who is beautifully refined and he adores, while he’s in college. They have English together and that’s how they first meet. Her father is an abusive and emotional d*ck so Emily doesn’t know how to react to his affection and love for her at first. In fact, she pulls away completely. When he says he loves her, her response is simply “thank you.” The viewer understands inherently that it’s her dad and how f*cked up he was cheating on her mom that leads Emily to her mistrust in men in general, even Cherry who adores her. In an effort to get away from her feelings, Emily tells Cherry she’s moving to Montreal to go to school there instead. Distraught about the news, he joins the army instead of dealing with his sadness in a normal way, whatever that might be. She gave him a reason for being and without her, he feels lost. 

It’s in the Army, that he meets Jimenez and trains to become a medic and earns his nickname, “Cherry,” there. Cherry never realizes what the war will do to him, and just how much it will tear him into two until he watches Jimenez, who has become one of his best friends there, and some of his other army buddies, blown up as the convoy goes to get some help. Seeing that breaks him completely, and is, in my mind, the beginning of his downfall. He comes back from the Army two years later with a medal of honor, but ask Cherry, and he’d tell you he just wants his friends back home safe and alive. 

Not only does he come back without his army buddies, he comes back with PTSD, and struggles to find his way back into an everyday mundane life, trying to hang out with his misfit friends back home. He deals with drug addiction and emotional outbursts, dragging Emily along for the ride. At first, he’s addicted to Oxy, and Emily is still on the straight and narrow at this point, but over time, cannot deal with his outbursts anymore, and wants to be numb to everything as well. They both turn to heroin and as they call it, the “dope life.” Emily admits to Cherry she feels partially responsible for everything since she told him she was leaving for Montreal in the first place, which is what triggered him to join the Army. He joined wanting to help people, but came back battered and bruised, emotionally. 

The pair spiral down the addiction rabbit hole and end up breaking into Black’s safe. Black is a notorious drug kingpin, and Pills & Coke, one of his associates, tells Cherry either they find a way to give Black his money for all the heroin and coke they just did, or they’re all dead men walking. Cherry has a bright idea to rob a bank and is able to give Coke, Black’s money back, but it takes him further into his addiction because every time Cherry robs a bank, he skims some of the top to help with their addiction.

It’s here that Cherry becomes a serial robber. For him, a little is never enough, and his addiction now isn’t only to drugs, but also robbing banks. Part of it, I think is because in this moment, Cherry feels alive, even if only for a moment. Cherry almost loses Emily to their heroine addiction, and for most, it would sober them up, but for both Cherry and Emily, they’re so far gone that all it does it pushes them further into their addiction. Coke dies in a robbery gone wrong and so Cherry is forced to work face-to-face with Black who will stop at nothing to get his money. 

Cherry robs a bank one last time, but this time asks the teller to push the button and doesn’t run, instead, he walks away from the bank a bit after giving the slimeball his money, and sits on the ground, takes his shoes off, and shoots up one last time before being taken away.

The epilogue takes place in jail from 2007-2021. For most, jail would be the end of the road, but for Cherry, it becomes his path to full redemption and recovery. Instead of hiding from his demons, Cherry finally faces them and becomes whole once again, allowing for a better life not only for himself, but for his one true constant, Emily, who is there to meet him once again in the end. 

Cherry is a masterpiece of epic proportions about just how much the human psyche can endure, overcome, and ultimately find its way back home. Emotional, raw, and completely real, this is one movie you’ll want to watch more than once to understand all the little nuances. Make sure to carve out some time to watch Cherry, you’ll thank us. Cherry releases in theaters on February 26 and on Apple TV+ on March 12.