Sacramento Movie Review (2025)
Every age range can use a buddy comedy, and Sacramento provides one for the thirty-something-about-to-have-a-baby-anxiety dudes. It’s not half bad!
I have an admission to make – I love the movie Almost Famous. My husband and I quote it regularly, I watch it yearly, and I have “Fever Dog” and “Love Comes and Goes” on my Spotify playlist because, in my opinion, Still Water is a real band. All of this being the case, Michael Angarano, who plays young William and is now a grown man, will always have the space of a friend’s little brother in my heart. Oh yeah, and he wrote, directed, and stars in Sacramento.
Sacramento is the story of Glenn, an anxiety-ridden man who is about to be laid off from his job and whose wife is about to have a baby, and his friend Rickey, a self-centered, semi-lost soul who wanders around without sticking anywhere specific for very long. When Rickey (who knows nothing about Glenn’s current life) shows up at Glenn’s house unannounced and the two go out to lunch, they end up taking a road trip to Sacramento to scatter the ashes of Rickey’s dad.
This cute comedy is a road trip/buddy movie starring Michael Angarano and Michael Cera that explores the years and anxieties that some men have (and may not manage well) related to expecting a new baby. Your life is going to change drastically, you have no control over what is coming, and, as a man with certain expectations from society and/or yourself, you don’t know what to do with it all. You also start thinking about your relationship with your own father.
The film is enjoyable, but not particularly laugh-out-loud funny. I related to Kristen Stewart’s character as Glenn’s wife as she tried to talk her husband down and pacify him as she is trying to work and/or get the house ready for baby, and I understood Rickey’s girlfriend (played by Maya Erskine) as she had certain conversations with him. It made me curious to hear what a man thinks of this movie, only because I couldn’t relate to the male characters as well. I want to know how much of their experience is relatable to someone who has gone through it and how much of it is caricature. It could honestly go either way.
I think of this as kind of a “dude movie.” Not that anyone can’t appreciate it, but the movie displays how male friendships taper off a bit as they age and each have their own lives. You don’t stop caring about each other, but you don’t really know each other as well anymore. This goes for all friendships to some degree, but this movie really highlights how it happens between the dudes who may have spent years hanging out together beforehand.
After watching the movie and doing a little light research, I learned that Michael Angarano is married to Maya Erskine, has been friends with Michael Cera for years, and that he also dated Kristen Stewart as a teenager, before she was in Twilight. Knowing that this is a film between friends added a whole new layer for me. Maybe it shouldn’t, but seeing a bunch of people who care about each other and have history come together to film a movie, that’s just bonus fun.
Overall, this is a different take on the buddy comedy at a point in life that isn’t often explored in film. It’s entertaining and doesn’t waste your time with fluff – plus, it was written and directed by my friend’s little brother. Okay, not really, but still.
Runtime: 99 minutes
Motion Picture Rating: R
Languages Spoken In The Film: English
Should You Watch It? Yes, it’s light and cute
Did I Cry? Nope
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
Available: Currently in theaters
