Actress and filmmaker Asia Argento directed this faithful screen adaptation of the fictional J.T. Leroy's fictional memoir, which documents a boy's truly harrowing road to adulthood. Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett) is the seven-year-old son of Sarah (Asia Argento), an unstable and unwed mother who abandoned her son and left him to be raised by foster parents. Jeremiah has come to love his guardians, and is devastated when Sarah arrives at their doorstep, demanding her child back. Threatening Jeremiah
with torture if he tries to run away, Sarah introduces her young son to drugs and encourages her one-night-stand paramours to help "discipline" her son when she feels his behavior is inappropriate. Sarah marries a man named Emerson (Jeremy Renner), but abandons him shortly afterward; Emerson responds by molesting Jeremiah, and soon the child is left in the care of his grandparents (Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti), members of a fundamentalist Christian sect which emphasizes child discipline that's strict to the point of abuse. After three years, Sarah returns with a new husband, Kenny (Matt Schulze), and takes Jeremiah (now played by Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse) with her; Kenny spends most of his time on the road as a trucker, and Sarah supports the family at home as a stripper and a prostitute. Sarah also begins dressing her son is girl's clothing, which excites the perverse appetites of Sarah's latest boyfriend, Jackson (Marilyn Manson); she soon leaves Jackson and pairs off with Chester (Jeremy Sisto), a biker with a dangerous way of making a living. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the "Directors Fortnight" series. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
There is no redemption, no surcease, and as the film ends the barbarity continues. This film made me intensely uncomfortable, but that was its intention.
At best, this film raises an all-too-relevant question: Are true-life stories interesting because they're true? Or because they're interesting? At worst, it raises a different question: What if they're neither true nor interesting?
[The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things] has a deceptively desultory structure where no moral system or 'new daddy' seems to hold much water upon introduction, but each accumulates ideas which make an atavistic reappearance at the most inopportune of tim
The subject matter might be quite disturbing to some, but for those who don't mind a little child-rape with their crack-smoking, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is well worth a look.
To appreciate or even tolerate the film, you must separate yourself from the characters and the material. What's unfortunate is that the movie is too well made to let you do just that.
I don't know if the movie follows the book closely, but if it does, you kind of have to wonder how Leroy or Albert or whoever it was made such a splash in the first place.
Asia Argento presents a bleak, disturbing and horrific film. Argento refuses to undermine the story by offering no final solution. The films main purpose is to make the audience feel very uncomfortable. Problems like child abuse are easy to put aside as coverage of real life events must always be handled with tact.
Argento goes for a more direct approach. Argento and the boys all give sterling performances, and are aided by a never-ending stream of boyfriends from Manson-Renner. The Sprouse boys have certainly come along way and their performances are intune with each other. Wonderful, but not light, stuff.
This movie was excellent - extremely disturbing and certainly wouldn't be to everyone's taste. Jimmy Bennett is excellent as a little boy in foster care who's drugged up, hopeless, too awful for words mother comes back to claim him. What follows is so horrific that it came as quite a relief to do a bit more research
and discover the "true story" was in fact a hoax, but all the same, sure there are plenty of people out there this type of crap does happen to, and this was so well done. It has a few cameo appearances in it by various people such as Michael Pitt, Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson - none of them are in it for more than a few minutes, so not worth renting just to see any of those if you are a fan. I was impressed with Winona's appearance though, it was darkly funny and actually nearly didn't recognise her.
No quotes approved yet for The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Submit a Quote from 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things'
A quote can be a single line from one character or a memorable dialog between several characters. Please make your quotes accurate. Quotes will be submitted for approval by the RT staff.
Example:
Luke: Alright. I'll give it a try. Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Top Critic
