The Sitter

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Movie Details

• Genre: Comedy
• Release Date: 2011-12-09 Nationwide
• Running Time: 100 min.
• Director: David Gordon Green
• Cast: Sam Rockwell, Jonah Hill, Ari Graynor, Miriam McDonald, Erin Daniels, Method Man, Max Records, Dreama Walker, J.B. Smoove, D.W. Moffett
• Producer: Michael De Luca
• Writer: Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka
• Distributor: 20th Century Fox
• Official Site: The Sitter Official Site

Big, soft, squishy: These words describe Jonah Hill's heart as well as his body in The Sitter, the mixed-bag last record of its star's physique before a radical slim-down. Directed by David Gordon Green, the film — a hard-R riff on '80s standbys like Adventures in Babysitting — is set in motion when Hill's Noah, kicked out of college and living at home in the suburbs with Mom, reluctantly agrees to mind three neighborhood squirts. His charges include Slater (Max Records), a 13-year-old basket (and closet) case who totes his anti-anxiety meds in a fanny pack; the pill popper's celebutante-besotted little sister, Blithe (Landry Bender); and their adopted brother from El Salvador, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), a sociopath and total parodic misfire. A call from kind-of girlfriend Marisa (Ari Graynor), who promises sex if Noah brings her coke in Brooklyn, means the kids will be strapped into the mini-van and constantly imperiled by Sam Rockwell's drug kingpin. Breaking through the uninspired setup are several great scenes of Noah getting his comeuppance, confronting his deadbeat dad, and gently advising the tykes (in between endangering their lives). Unlike most of the man-boy comedies from the past five years — formulaic mixtures of raunch, treacle, and gynophobia — The Sitter features a protagonist neither too repellent from the outset nor too self-congratulatory at the conclusion. Hill plays Noah with just the right amount of self-loathing, deep down convinced of his own merit, not needing to humiliate anyone to prove it.