Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here with one of the most interesting films
I've seen so far this year. Plus it has Asia Argento playing a junkie
hooker. There is a God.
The backstory to this Asia Argento-directed film is probably more
interesting than the finished product, and the finished product is damn
compelling. The story of young author JT Leroy is one for the ages. In 2000,
he published a semi-autobiographical novel called Sarah and literary critics
raved. A year later, his second novel, The Heart Is Deceitful Above all
Things, saw equally critical acclaim. The books were depictions of a
terrible upbringing and the all-too-evil things that people do to each
other. Celebrities not only read Leroy’s works, but they claimed friendships
with the elusive writer. He was actually spotted at various functions,
interviews, and press events. Leroy also went on to write the powerful
script for Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. Eventually, actress Argento (Land of the
Dead) acquired the rights to adapt and direct The Heart Is Deceitful.
Just last month, it was revealed by The New York Times revealed that Leroy
was a completely fictitious identity. In fact, he was a she, a woman named
Laura Albert, and that Albert’s sister-in-law was playing Leroy in public.
None of this makes this film (or the novels) any less believable. In fact, I
found it nearly impossible to take my eyes off the screen.
Perhaps more than any other film I’ve seen on the subject of the children of
prostitutes and drug addicts, The Heart Is Deceitful assembles a devastating
character study of Jeremiah (played young by Firewall’s Jimmy Bennett and
slightly older by twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse), whose whore-junkie mother
Sarah (Argento in a fiercely evil performance) has no interest in shielding
her child from the horrors of her life. She wants to immerse him in her
filth. After forcibly removing Jeremiah from a seemingly wonderful foster
home, Sarah forces hardship after hardship on her child. A succession of
boyfriends (including one played by an unrecognizable, makeup-free Marilyn
Manson) and homes leave the boy feeling lost and lonely. For a brief time,
Jeremiah is sent to live with his ultra-Christian grandparents (Peter Fonda
and Ornella Muti), who have several young men and women under their
fundamentalist care.
Although we rarely stop to think about the children of these kinds of
parents, it stands to reason that not every substance-abusing mother or
father is trying to shield their self-destructive lifestyle from their kids,
and The Heart Is Deceitful probably is not an extreme example of people like
this. But I’ve never seen anything quite this eye-opening. The movie
occasionally falls into indie-film formula with off-beat casting (including
appearances by Ben Foster, Kip Pardue, Jeremy Sisto, Michael Pitt, John
Robinson, and an uncredited Winona Ryder), but Argento’s handling of the
24-hour chaos that is Jeremiah’s life is nothing short of perfect. The
original score by Billy Corgan simply drives the hardcore point home.
Although the mystery of whether Leroy’s writings are born in truth or not
may never be known, I maintain that, if the work stands on its own and has a
profound impact on reader/viewers, what difference does it make? Argento’s
approach to drug addiction and sexual destruction is different, but no less
disturbing, than Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, and that is company
worth keeping.
Capone
Asia, let me lick the blood from your junkie holes!
