Sacramento shares significant DNA with the superior but darker A Real Pain. Except instead of taking place across Europe, it settles for a road trip to Sacramento, California. Maybe that’s a downgrade but also maybe it’s more approachable?

The film stars a distressingly bearded Michael Cera as a man happily married to a pregnant Kristen Stewart. When his best friend that he hates shows up and wants to take a last minute road trip to Sacramento, he tags along out of obligation.

This is a reasonably funny film that turns out to be about anxiety and fatherhood in ways I found unexpected. It has a casual hangout kind of vibe that takes sudden turns, some of which are quite eyebrow raising in their level of bad choices. But in that the film lets them make mistakes, snipe at each other, and relate awkwardly to their women, it’s a remarkably unique take at manhood.

It doesn’t hit everything consistently right, but in that it tries with such a perfect cast is great. Like A Real Pain, I’m not sure I’d want to hang around with any of these knuckleheads, but as an acting and screenwriting vehicle, we need more of this.

Michael Cera and Kristen Stewart don’t have a lot of scenes together, but what they do, I want more of. I never paired them together in my brain before but, yeah, their unique brands of on-screen anxiety have a weird way of working out.

I didn’t love this movie but I enjoyed it. I could have used some changes to certain decisions, but I’m almost as happy the movie is this kind of a deliberate mess.

Score: 82