C’mon C’mon (M, 110 min) Directed by Mike Mills ****½

In present-day Detroit, podcast producer Johnny receives an urgent call from his sister Viv.

Viv’s husband, Paul, is suffering from a nervous breakdown and will need full-time care, at least for a while. But her nine-year-old son, Jesse, also needs someone to look after him. Will Johnny fly to California and stay for a few weeks, while Viv devotes her energy to getting Paul back on his feet?

It seems less than ideal for Johnny, but the trip quickly becomes healing between the siblings, who had had a serious argument over their own mother’s end-of-life care a year or two earlier. But when Paul takes a wrong turn and Johnny has to get back to his work – a series of interviews about the world view of children – the decision is made that Jesse can accompany his uncle to New York. And so, a road trip, of sorts, and an unlikely, but mostly wonderful thread about a man and a boy learning to care for each other begin to unfold.

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go! Go on is the fourth feature film from writer-director Mike Mills. His escape was great Beginners in 2010, starring Christopher Plummer as a married man who comes out as gay at the age of 75. Mills based the film on the life of his own father.

And, in 2016, Mills once again undermined her childhood for the equally nuanced and heartfelt 20and women of the centurywhich probably should have gotten at least a few more nominations for the lead role of Annette Bening.

go! Go on isn’t as closely based on real events as Mills’ last two films. But it feels just as real and as startlingly elliptical as only real life can seem.

Mills’ choice to shoot in black and white is perfect here. It suits the formality of the framing and the density of the dialogue. As with Alfonso Cuaron Rome, we are here to listen and be told a story. Visuals are a nice accompaniment, but never a distraction.

Black and white has a way of lulling and calming the mind, which I think is ideal for a film where the importance of the characters actually listening to each other is paramount.

As Jesse, young Woody Norman is surprisingly good and indifferent, delivering a lackluster and mostly perfect performance as a feisty but scared nine-year-old boy.

And Gaby Hoffman (Transparent), is wonderful as Viv, giving us an identifiable and relatable working mother under immense stress, never reaching sympathy or a false note.

But at the center of it all – and as a possible expression of Mills himself – Joaquin Phoenix plays one of the finest male leads I’ve seen in months. There’s an unforced sympathy about reeling, uncertain and quietly heartbroken Johnny that makes go! Go on just sing. Very few actors I can think of – Mark Ruffalo perhaps, or a young Nicolas Cage on his best day – could have made Johnny de Mills’ vision work as perfectly as Phoenix does here.

It’s only a few moments go! Go on feel even slightly contrived. Which, for a movie set so often in the world of raising a troubled child, must make it almost unique.

Mills absolutely wants to take his audience on a journey, and he does so very successfully, but he doesn’t try – as a less confident or educated filmmaker would – to make every moment something deep or indelible.

It’s refreshing to realize that a filmmaker has enough confidence in his script and his actors, to let the film work as a whole and not ask each scene to force the effect.

go! Go on — for the screenplay and, for Phoenix, in particular — strikes me as the movie that’s been stolen the most when it comes to Oscar nominations.

I love that movie. Go see it on a suitable screen while you have the chance.

go! Go on begins screening in select theaters nationwide from February 17.