Jesus'
Son
Oh, the
hell of possessive versions of names that end in s. There's the floating
apostrophe, a phantom s and all that does not even counter in the fact
that the next word might also start with an s. Its a minefield that many
cinema's have decided to just not get involved with, which is possibly
why Jesus' Son is only on in a few movie houses. It might also be because
it really is a pretty tedious piece of cliched, storyless anecdotal druggie
toss. As I mentioned in the Ghost Dog review, there is an indie style and
that is exactly what Alison Maclean does with this adaptation of what might
have been a great sprawling American novel but feels pretty unfilmable.
I went to
see it because I was itching for something I did not know much about, and
because it had a few actors in it who I fancied seeing again. Jack Black
- the star turn of High Fidelity - but more importantly I fancied (in more
than one way) see Samantha Morton speak. Morton is in a lot more of the
film than Black, and it is telling that when her junkie character goes
the way of many of cinema's junkies you feel that the film should end.
Instead it wends another twenty minutes of post rehab tedium which makes
you just itch for that twitchy, naïve smile thing that Morton does
so damn well. A lousy film to be in Sam, but you walk away with the honours.
Jesus' Son
is an anecdotal set of tales taking place over our narrators life in the
early seventies. We see him fall in love with Morton, we see him get into
drugs, we see him come out. And all along lots of wryly humourous things
happen to him. At least that is the plan. In actual fact, only one wryly
humourous thing happens to him, in the segment containing Black unsurprisingly.
Here we have a story of our hero and Black as zoned out ER orderlies faced
with a man stabbed in the eye. Played perfectly by the support this would
have made a fantastic short film. Instead it is the highlight surrounded
by another ten or so segments which frankly drag.
Part of
the blame for this has to be set upon Billy Crudup, who plays our narrator.
He is in nearly every scene, this film is about him: yet we care more about
Morton - so much so that as I say the film seems superfluous without her.
He is pretty to look at, and does the hopeless, happy junkie face well
- but in the end he merely resembles the singer of the Bluetones bumbling
around. And I don't really care for the Bluetones. Nihilism has its place,
but since the voice-over is at odds with the character we see portrayed
it is difficult to invest much emotion in him.
In the end
though there is a second hand feeling about much of the film. The heroin
film has been done before, and better. The first half hour felt like a
re-run of Drugstore Cowboy - with some of the self referential, hip spin
of Trainspotting thrown in. Without a proper plot, and without a clear
sense of direction the film just falls into indie clichés. Some
of these are well executed, but there is no need for the retelling of the
same scenes and the stab at non-linear storytelling. These may all be hand
me downs from the source material - in which case I would urge that they
get left there.
I have problems
with adaptations, and here I do not know the book Jesus' Son is named after
(I do however know the song it comes from which makes a surprising non-appearance
on the soundtrack). It attempts a stab at the cool, alternative genre but
falls down by mere aping films which already exist and do it better. It
has a very good, and overly busy soundtrack of various music - mainly alt
country. And much like alt country too much time is spent observing the
stylistic trappings of the genre without getting down to the nitty gritty
of having a tune. Or in Jesus' Son a plot. Too long, too fragmented and
pretty much a waste of everyone in concerneds time. Worth it only for died
in the wool Samantha Morton fans. Which sneakily I am becoming. (3 - all
for Sam).
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Drugstore Cowboy hits Trainspotting and then foolishly
hits a big steaming pile of crap.
