The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things Movie Review:


This disturbing and moving film is based on the autobiographical stories of JT LeRoy, about a boy growing up in horrific conditions that combine the dangers of drugs, squalor, abuse and mind-control religion.

After time in a foster home, 7-year-old Jeremiah (first Bennett, then the Sprouse brothers) goes back to live with his young mother Sarah (Argento), who can't beat her addictions to sex, alcohol, drugs and dangerous men. Eventually abandoned, Jeremiah spends a few years in the home of his grandparents (Muti and Fonda), who run a fundamentalist religious cult that's even more terrifying than the string of boyfriends (Pardue, Schulze, Renner, Manson, Sisto) his mother brings home. Then she comes back for him.

Artful and stylish, Argento's acting and filmmaking are edgy, authentic and rather nuts. The film is a feast (or maybe an assault) on the senses with light and colour, sound and texture, grimy rawness and goofy effects. Several scenes imply truly horrific assaults that are more memorable because Argento shows such restraint, letting us feel the pain more deeply because we have to imagine it.

Performances are uneven, but all contain emotional power. Argento is such a vivid presence that we can forgive her wild-eyed excesses--Sarah is the black sheep of her goodie-goodie family, a junkie slag who simply hasn't a clue how to be a mother. Bennett and the Sprouses are simply astonishing as Jeremiah, bringing a transparent soul to this young boy with adult eyes. And Robinson is the other standout, with a remarkably natural performance as their trapped uncle. It's also nice to see Manson shake loose his iconic image as beer-swilling trailer trash.

By telling the story from Jeremiah's point of view, Argento reminds us that, regardless of what actually happened, this is how this young, impressionable mind perceived his childhood. Even if the film is almost overwhelmingly seedy and grim, it also has a bleak tenderness that reaches out to us, keeps us gripped, and lingers long in the memory afterwards.



Rich Cline

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.