Sunday morning in Sacramento, an eclectic crowd chills at Forgotten Bakery whereas Levitation Room vibes on the audio system. Locals sit with their canines, eat empanadas, and sip iced espresso. The ambiance is hip, relaxed, and much from the Sacramento portrayed in Michael Angarano’s movie, Sacramento, which debuted this April at our lovely Tower Theater.
In Angarano’s eyes, Sacramento is caught within the Reagan period. Its wood-paneled bars and John Wain decor reinstate dated masculine expectations. Sacramento is Dad-country: a damaged previous and a attainable way forward for smash.
Sacramento is about anxious Los Angeles males leaving all the things they know in alternate for impending fatherhood. It isn’t a typical buddy highway journey promising journey and comical mishap. It’s a catastrophe story. Childhood pals who met in swim class, Rickey (performed by Angarano), panicked and virtually drowned Glenn (Michael Cera), an occasion that ceaselessly outlined their relationship.
“Please don’t do coke within the rest room”, reads a prop signal as Glenn desperately calls estranged pals who’ve deserted him in his psychological decline. By means of voicemail, Glenn proclaims that he and his spouse Rosie (Kristen Stewart) expect a child. It’s nice! He misplaced his job. Not nice. Cramped within the small rest room, Glenn presses near the mirror, reassuring absentee pals and his reflection that being an at-home dad is an effective factor. Denial is prevalent in Sacramento.
The one buddy in Glenn’s camp is Rickey, whom Glenn intends to part out of his life. Glenn doesn’t share the information of Rosie’s being pregnant with Rickey, though Rickey figures it out. Rickey, the orchestrator of this journey, manipulates Glenn into leaving LA to take his father’s ashes to Sacramento. “I knew he would play the dead-dad card!” gripes Glenn, asking Rosie permission to go away her for a day. We all know one thing is mistaken when Rickey scoops dust right into a tennis ball container to pose as his dad’s ashes.
All through the highway journey, the chums are out of sync. Rickey continues to extract info from Glenn, whereas his true intentions concerning a go to to Sacramento stay unclear. Their disconnect is just like polarizing magnets; we surprise if they’re appropriate pals.
Two flirtatious girls, Arielle and Jess (AJ Mendez and Iman Karram), relieve Sacramento‘s constructing stress. Skilled fighters, the ladies showcase their gymnasium with a squared circle for boxing. Rickey and Glenn join over boyhood recollections of play-fighting and damaged wrists, reenacting the WWF’s signature stunts. This joyous play doesn’t final lengthy.
When Rickey’s lies change into evident, Glenn confronts him, insisting Rickey wants skilled assist. A self-help novice, Rickey accuses Glenn of projecting. Rickey is just not mistaken, however lacks the required credentials (and probably psychological stability) to make a prognosis. On the Sacramento River, a waterway identified to locals as a demise entice for these swimming with out life jackets, Rickey and Glenn proceed their relationship of drowning each other.
Then again, the ladies in Sacramento settle for life’s undertows. Seven months pregnant, Rosie handles Glenn’s neurosis with ease however makes clear, “I shouldn’t must maintain you proper now.” This message is repeated by Tallie (Maya Erskine), Rickey’s actual cause for driving to Sacramento.
A single mom, Tallie listens as Rickey grapples with what he needs in life. Tallie, nonetheless, clarifies that she will be able to’t look after her little one whereas fixing Rickey. The message to those man-children: it’s time to get it collectively, develop up, settle for the lack of management, and transfer into unknown territory.
That is what Sacramento is to LA locals. It’s unimaginably totally different from acquainted floor. Our summers are uncomfortably sizzling, and our metropolis is boring. Our California counterparts, hilly San Francisco and glitzy Los Angeles, have expertise and film studios. We’re paper-pushing authorities staff, suburbs, and farms. Sacramento, as Lakers coach Phil Jackson acknowledged in 2002, is “Cowtown”.
Angarano doesn’t current Greta Gerwig-loving photographs of the Tower Theater’s neon lights at twilight. Nor does he present Sacramento’s inclusive nightlife and vibrant arts and meals scene. Even in 2025, we’re nonetheless Cowtown. That’s okay. We embrace our fame, typically ringing cowbells at our opponents throughout basketball video games. As a Bay Space transplant presently residing in Sacramento, I perceive the punches LA, San Francisco, and Sacramento take at one another. It’s all in good enjoyable.
Self-knowing laughter crossed the theater as Glenn described our dwelling as a metropolis he has no need to go to. Whereas our city isn’t glamorous, it’s the good setting for Glenn and Rickey’s disaster. Like impending maturity, Sacramento seems distant, boring, unimaginable, dangerous, uncool, however not an unreasonable vacation spot.
“We’re nearer than you suppose,” Rickey says of the six-hour distance. “We’re nearer than you suppose,” he repeats, honing in on the metaphor to Glenn’s annoyance. Sure, we get it. Sacramento is greater than flat landscapes and lengthy, boring drives to nowhere. Like parenthood, Sacramento is a mindset not too removed from all the things you realize. Simply chill out; it’s a part of the journey. Hey, it’s not such as you’re caught in Fresno.
