Jesus Henry Christ

I was in the library one afternoon, browsing through the DVD titles looking for something to jump out at me. Jesus Henry Christ, caught my eye because of its two leads, Michael Sheen and Toni Collette. I love their work and was surprised to see a film starring both of them, that I hadn't heard of.

Toni Collette is the single mother of Henry - a product of sperm donor father. Being a child genius, Henry knows all he needs to. Everything except the most important thing, "Who is his father?"

Several leaps of faith later and Henry is lead to Michael Sheen, who may or may not be the sperm donor. And 'hilarity' ensues. OK, I guess I may not have been very charitable there, but the film is not a great one. At the films core is an interesting idea and as I have titled my review "It's heart is in the right place". But I feel the film doesn't really know where it's going or what it wanted to be. It switches from moments of farce, black comedy and drama. It also shoots off at tangents, leaving several threads hanging.

Sheen and Collette do the best they can with the material at hand. But I couldn't help wondering how or indeed why either, but especially Sheen had ended up in this film.

The film describes itself as being "quirky". I am suspicious of anything that describes itself as quirky. Surely that is for the viewer to decide?

That said, the film is enjoyable in the most part, and it did make me laugh a couple of times. Perhaps best watched on a wet Saturday afternoon, if there is nothing better to do.

I have given it a 6/10 score - mainly due to Collette and Sheen. With lesser actors the score would have been less.

The film has its bad points which are expressed in other reviews, In this one I will only be dealing with the howevers... Whilst the storyline consists of the undeveloped stories of each of the main characters and ends a little too neatly there are moments within the film which make it worth watching, largely due to the almost characteur like portrayal of the main characters. Whilst the characters are seen by many critics as shallow there are a lot of characters in it to enjoy. Unfortunately what made the film enjoyable for me personally was the mingling of the eccentricities of each characters, I say unfortunately as this seems to be where it falters in many peoples eyes: Whilst interesting the characters may be, the running time of the film does not allow for the full realization of the characters. I did not mind this so much as I have personally found in wes anderson films (tho i still love them) that sometimes the building of the characters have slowed the film down to what is usually a melancholy pace. JHC is seen as a poor version of a wes anderson film but as a wes anderson fan I found the eccentricities of the characters enjoyable all the same, despite the troubles in fully realising them in the plot. If there had been another half an hour added and the films dead ends reworked into satisfying conclusions this film could have easily been an 8+ /10

It is movies like this that reminds me of the sweetness of little films off the mainstream. And this very film, it is one that captures innocent adolescence and somewhat touches moral standards. But to put it simply, it is intriguing story-telling that really moves me.

This is not a standard film. There is hardly a way to compare, nor is comparison required if you ask me. My sole impression is that it is a feel-good and relaxing movie, mostly comedic with seemingly unrelated silliness, yet it also possesses the qualities of an inspiring drama: family relationships and coming-of-age themes, and perhaps more if you're eager to look further. Other than that it is a heartfelt comedy, not one of those laugh-out-loud ones, but one that manages to bind loose and scattered things and thoughts into a bittersweet experience, and a truly interesting tale of Henry James Herman, or Jesus Henry Christ if you like.

The backdrop of the plot is the extraordinary abilities of Henry, and from there it evolves unpredictably and fast to a reunion of Henry and Audrey, who he believes is his sister. And of course it continues.

The performances are not exceptionally surprising but the power of story has made that problem minor, as my love of the film emanates from the bravely unconventional story than from the acting.

Movies like this need to be made. For people who enjoy something different and relaxing from time to time, this film is not to be missed.

I have to say I was impressed, pleasantly by this indie production. I did chance upon the movie and I did not expect much from the story line. I thought it would be some kind of children offering and I was prepared to sample and leave it. However I found a little gem of a film. It is funny, well acted and briskly paced. The story of the little genius is more incidental than central to the theme. I particularly like the black humour that one wouldn't expect associated with with child actors. All in all it shows that mega budget are not needed to produce an intelligent, humorous and entertaining production. Well done Dennis Lee. I will watch out for this director/writer.

Of course nothing wrong with a more little and indie type of movie, as long as its good or compelling, which just most often isn't the case with this movie.

The whole movie came across as a bit of a pointless one to me. the story is lacking a clear purpose and by the end of it, it also doesn't feel like anything has been resolved.

Besides, everything in this movie feels far from natural. I'm not even necessarily talking about its story and the situations that are happening in it but more so about its characters and their relationships amongst each other. People fall in love, just because the story tells them to but not because there is any chemistry or any good reason for the two of them to fall in love with each other. Or at least the movie just doesn't give any. And the movie is being like this, with just about everything and everyone that is in this movie. A girl is weird, just because she is and a boy is supposed to be insanely smart, even while the movie doesn't ever give you any good reasons to believe this all. The whole way they get presented in this story and react to each other feel far from likely or natural. It just didn't made this movie a very pleasant one.

To me it's being very obvious that Dennis Lee had seen a bit too many Wes Anderson movies and he tries to be just like him, with his style and approach. It uses similar tropes, such as having quirky characters in it, that however do absolutely nothing good and interesting and by turning something that normally isn't funny at all into something comedic, just and only in the way it gets presented but not because it's actually something funny. No, I'm far from a big Wes Anderson fan, so it's also no big surprise that I really didn't liked this movie either, since it's simply being a lite- and less clever or original version of a Wes Anderson movie.

It's not a horrible movie, just not really one that I could ever like watching or felt like it was doing anything clever or compelling, with neither its different plot lines or any of its characters.

5/10

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