Film

Cherish

Name: Cherish
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 2002
Cast: Robin Tunney, Tim Blake Nelson, Brad Hunt, Liz Phair, Jason Priestley

Drama

A deadpan indie comedy about a woman confined to house arrest after a drunken night, forced to confront reality through an ankle monitor. Robin Tunney carries the film with wry detachment as Zoe navigates the absurdity of her punishment. It's a small, strange film that finds dark humour in humiliation and the gap between who we pretend to be and who we actually are.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like unhinged, slightly off-kilter heroines told with a wink, where a jolt of dark humour sits right beside a creeping sense that something is wrong.

Skip it if the mood is restless and the tonal shifts can feel abrupt, so if you want a comedy that settles into one clear groove, this will likely frustrate you.

What it asks of you: A brisk ninety-nine minutes that keeps you guessing about what is real in its heroine's head, so you need to stay alert rather than sit back and let it wash over you.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Welcome to the Dollhouse1996

Todd Solondz finds devastating comedy in social humiliation and outsider status. Dawn Weiner's nightmare of adolescence has the same unflinching eye for cruelty and the same refusal to let the audience off easy.

But It's bleaker and more punishing than Cherish, and Solondz's style can feel deliberately ugly in ways that test patience.

The Graduate1967

A cornerstone of films about paralysis and confused identity. Benjamin Braddock's aimlessness and the film's wry view of American expectations provide thematic kinship beneath completely different surfaces.

But It's nearly sixty years old and occasionally feels it, and the tone swings toward sentiment in ways Cherish never would.

Drinking Buddies2013

Joe Swanberg's improvised comedy-drama about two people in arrested development navigating attraction and disappointment. Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson have a fumbling, honest chemistry that captures the same awkward realism.

But The lack of plot structure annoys some viewers, and the comedy is conversational rather than constructed, which can feel thin on a first watch.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Cherish

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Funny Ha Ha2003

Both films find their comedy and drama in characters paralysed by their own inability to connect, using constraint (house arrest, poverty, social failure) to expose what was already broken inside.

Andrew Bujalski's micro-budget mumblecore pioneer captures the same deadpan aimlessness and failed expectations. Kate Dollenmayer's Marnie drifts through her twenties with the exact same wry detachment as Zoe under house arrest—trapped by circumstance and herself.

But Shot on DV with non-professional actors and no traditional plot, it feels like watching someone's art project rather than a finished film. Dialogue overlaps, scenes end abruptly, and there's no arc.

Envy2004

Barry Levinson's dark comedy about resentment and friendship gone wrong has the same willingness to sit with discomfort. Ben Stiller and Jack Black are better than the material deserves, and the film doesn't soft-pedal its misanthropy.

But It's genuinely one of the worst-received comedies ever made, and mostly for good reason—the premise is stretched too thin.

Greenberg2010

Noah Baumbach's portrait of a man returning to Los Angeles in crisis has the same unflinching awkwardness and refusal to make its protagonist likeable. Ben Stiller is caustic and wounded in equal measure.

But Greenberg is aggressively unpleasant and self-absorbed, and if you're not aligned with Baumbach's wavelength, it can feel tedious rather than insightful.

After Hours1985

Scorsese's only straight comedy is a fever dream of New York humiliation. Griffin Dunne's ordeal spirals with increasing absurdity, capturing a similar sense of reality fracturing under pressure.

But It's relentlessly chaotic and occasionally surreal in ways that feel dated, and the comedy comes from mounting dread rather than laughs.

Spanking the Monkey1994

David O. Russell's debut finds twisted comedy in family dysfunction and sexual tension. The film's willingness to be genuinely uncomfortable while remaining darkly funny echoes Cherish's balancing act.

But The subject matter is deliberately transgressive and uncomfortable, and the protagonist is indefensible in ways that can alienate viewers.

The Dirties2013

Matt Johnson's found-footage comedy about friendship and failure captures a similar tone of misplaced fantasy colliding with reality. It's low-budget and genuinely strange in ways that reward patience.

But The found-footage aesthetic is limiting, the comedy is niche, and the tonal turns are jarring in a film that feels like it might be a joke you're not quite in on.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both films are structured as journeys into solipsism—Zoe's ankle monitor and altered reality parallel Caden's theatre piece that swallows his entire existence, both exploring how we use fantasy to avoid the unbearable truth of being alone.

Charlie Kaufman's one directorial feature is a surreal epic about a theatre director whose life collapses into his art. Like Cherish, it's obsessed with the gap between fantasy and reality, but it spins that idea into something operatic and devastating.

But It's nearly two and a half hours of increasingly abstract sadness and meta-theatrical games. If you want catharsis or clarity, Kaufman actively refuses to give it to you.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar2023

Both prize the surreal logic of their premises—an invisible woman and a woman under electronic surveillance—as tools to examine what happens when society's rules literally mark you as other, and what that solitude might eventually teach you.

An oddball Japanese comedy series about a woman who attempts suicide and wakes up invisible to everyone but her therapist. Like Cherish, it mines dark comedy from social invisibility and the strange freedom that comes from having nothing left to lose.

But It's Japanese television comedy, which means the tone and structure will feel entirely unfamiliar. Subtitled, weird in specific ways, only twelve minutes per episode, and genuinely bleak underneath the lightness.