Jesus Henry Christ: Indie Film Failure

Like big budget Hollywood pictures, Indie films tend to be hit or miss. Jesus Henry Christ opened in limited release, and its release was limited for a reason. Writer/Director Dennis Lee has strewn together a cacophony of randomness that seems a poor attempt to mimic the success of Little Miss Sunshine and The Royal Tenenbaums. I wanted desperately to like this movie. It LOOKED great, it SOUNDED great, it had an AWESOME cast and a quirky and effective IDEA. But somehow, it fell short of screenplay and landed somewhere in stage play land.

The “plot” centers around precocious test tube baby turned super genius pre-teen prodigy Henry (Jason Spevack) trying to find his biological father.  His mother Patricia (Toni Collette) feels resentful toward his attempts; her love should be enough. With the help of his nurse chasing ex veteran grandfather Stan (Frank Herman) Henry finds his father Dr. Slavkin O’Hara (Michael Sheen). Slavkin has issues of his own; he’s a depressed divorcee raising an angry teenage lesbian daughter Audrey (Samantha Weinstein) and trying to keep his job at the University after publishing a failed book about Audrey’s young lesbianism. This cadres of characters attempt to come together and settle their differences, amidst over stylized and long-winded conflicts. In the end they all manage to co-exist after coping with the death of Stan, but frankly, it didn’t matter.

The attempt at “style” would have been better fit for the stage. At it’s core JHC wasn’t really a movie, because nothing visual of note really happened. I kept waiting for some major event to transpire, but instead I was subjected to scene after scene of interesting dialogue presented haphazardly. The movie would have been more stimulating if there was some sense of continuity to it, but the style kept flip flopping between slap-sticky, to satirical, and landed somewhere in Tela Novella and hum-drum understated land. (Seriously, there’s a scene where the characters switch to Spanish…I’m still not sure why)

Jesus Henry Christ is a movie that doesn’t know what it is. It’s an unconvincing blend of a character driven story that strives for understated comedy while using over the top stylized dialogue to interweave the whole mess together. The performances by the actors across the board were inconsistent, which is a huge surprise when such a stellar cast is present. Translation: It’s a directing problem. The very same script in the hands of an eccentric film director like Wes Anderson could have churned out the quirky darling Dennis Lee was hoping for. Some writers shouldn’t direct their own material. Jesus Henry Christ could have been something special, if it had been set on the stage.