Jesus' Son Directed by: Alison Maclean Dave's Rating: A- It's hard to capture the true atmosphere of the Midwest in the winter time. There's a certain amount of loneliness in the landscape as you drive through a state like Iowa or Kansas in the early evening hours of a cold, grey evening. Westerns or films about country living must employ a stock cinematographer that specializes in "photography of the plains." It's hard to find films that have the look of an Andrew Wyeth painting anymore. Jesus' Son has the Wyeth look. Jesus' Son opens with the film's hero FH standing on the side of the highway after just taking a nap. FH (played here by the under-rated actor Billy Crudup) looks like a sewer rat during a fasting period. His hair is a bird's nest, there's a spotty beard on his face, and he's soaking wet. FH has just been dumped by his girlfriend Michelle for a man named John Smith, but this is only the beginning of the film which starts in the middle of the story. Confused? By the way, FH stands for Fuck Head, a name FH earns and wears as a badge throughout the film. FH is a fellow with good intentions. We learn through voice over narration and flashbacks that Michelle (Samantha Morton) is the girl that gets him hooked on junk, but he doesn't seem to have a problem with that. FH and Michelle love each other when they're stoned, but click on the sober lights and they can't stand the sight of each other. Morton, who stole the show in Woody Allen's Sweet And Lowdown, acts like Raggedy Ann on heroin in this film. Morton gives Michelle just the right amount of energy where you can't help but liking her while she's jumping around in her yellow and red striped underwear. The film follows FH's time with and time away from Michelle, with both moments making for a very hilarious, yet rewarding piece of cinema. Jesus' Son takes place in the early 1970s and is based on short stories by the author Denis Johnson. The film plays like a series of skits at points. In setting up the character of FH, the film puts him in several humorous little bits such as finding a mute giant who looks like Bif from Back to the Future in the back of his Volkswagen. Incidentally, this giant leads FH to a large house in the country where Michelle is dancing in the front room like she has ants in her pants. There are a lot of cameos in the film which actually help the skit tone the film has. The always reliable Jack Black plays an orderly in a hospital FH gets a job at, and several humorous episodes revolve around FH and him popping prescription medicine and finding baby rabbits along a highway late at night. Denis Leary and Holly Hunter both put in terrific performances as well. I really enjoyed this film clear up to the credits. The last 25 minutes of the film present a new side of FH as a sobered up newsletter writer for a retirement home. It's very funny, and it shows FH as just a man walking the earth. This is evident throughout the entire film, but really comes out in the last reel of the film. FH succumbs to several realizations in the film, some of which have angelic symbolism in their context. Towards the end of the film FH hears from the street an Amish woman singing in her shower. Fh becomes so overtaken by the beauty of her voice he walks into her house and lays on her pristine bed, finding bliss in a heavenly moment. It's an absurd situation, but it just feels right. There's a religious vibe to Jesus' Son that I only picked halfway up on. The storytelling is so great, that you lose track at points on what the director, Alison Maclean, is really trying to get at. The drug use never seems to be a problem in the film, and for once blends into the background of this "junky" genre film. Crudup presents FH more as a casual user than a burnout. In one excellent use of a split screen, we see Denis Leary's character shoot up the same heroin as FH in another room. Leary's character dies right on the screen, and FH is right behind him until Michelle walks into the room and resurrects him. Which presents the question the film tries to answer: can one be a savior and still receive salvation in the same lifetime? Films about losers are only good if the loser never gets the right amount of luck coming his way, and Jesus' Son sticks to its guns. FH is a Fuck Head; someone we've all known or had a philosophical conversation with at 5 a.m. on a beaten up couch. FH is every man, and every man really wants to be FH sometimes. |
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