Jesus'
Son
Rated
R
Cinema 21
616 NW 21st
Ave, 223-4515
7 and 9:15
pm Friday-Thursday, additional shows
2 and 4:30 pm Saturday and Sunday, July 7-20
When Denis Johnson's short-story collection Jesus' Son
was published in 1992, that ungodly media creation known
as "heroin chic" was in full swing. In the minds of some
unfortunate people, this probably placed Johnson's lyrical,
uncompromising, tough and tender little book about drug
addicts in the unworthy company of hollow-cheeked Calvin
Klein models. Fortunately, the film adaptation, starring
Billy Crudup and Samantha Morton, is years too late for
heroin chic. In fact, it's not chic at all. It's content
to simply do some justice to the simplicity, poignance and
unpretentious, enduring relevance of Johnson's stories.
Aside from a very few modifications to the order and specifics
of events, director Alison Maclean (Crush, television's
Sex and the City) and screenwriters Elizabeth Cuthrell,
Oren Moverman and David Urrutia are entirely faithful to
both the narrative and the spirit of the book. As the stories
were, the film is divided (titles are used to indicate each
"chapter") into a handful of episodes, more closely related
to each other than it would appear at first, from the life
of a young loser junkie we know only by the well-deserved
name "Fuckhead" (Crudup). Fuckhead bums around America--mostly
the Midwest--during the early to mid-'70s, falling in love
and brawling with his girlfriend, Michelle (Morton), and
hanging around with characters (played by Denis Leary, Will
Patton and High Fidelity's Jack Black) who are without
exception insane, dangerous, criminal or all of the above.
Though often laconically humorous, Fuckhead's existence--his
loony acquaintances, his misadventures with Michelle, his
constant aimlessness, confusion and drug-inspired flights
of speech--is never trivialized.
As in Johnson's tales, understated pathos abounds. The
road to sobriety is a grueling, nearly impossible one for
Fuckhead and Michelle. In the classic junkie tradition,
they outsmart their better instincts at every turn and could
never be sober together; their need for each other and for
the drugs becomes indistinguishable. And they do bumble
along amiably enough--high, in love and happy--until Michelle's
pregnancy begins a chain of events that ends in tragedy
for one of them and salvation for the other.
The film is shot in a plain, unobtrusive style befitting
the stories' ramshackle stoicism, and clever and unusual
pacing and editing compensate for the lack of real visual
excitement.
What really makes this movie, though, is the cast. Crudup's
voice-over narration, taken verbatim from the book, is too
perky for Johnson's prose, but his shaggy physical presence
is perfect. The moon-faced, eminently watchable Morton transforms
her cuddly Sweet and Lowdown persona into a certain
wry, sexy sadness. Holly Hunter and Dennis Hopper also appear
in tiny roles, as does, quite noticeably, Portland artist
Miranda July.
With its honest, penetrating humanism, this film is, in
its own way, a feel-good movie in which the ugliness and
beauty of life coexist. Though it isn't great filmmaking,
Jesus' Son does moviegoers a real service by handling
Johnson's great stories with integrity and what is obviously
true comprehension.
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