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Unfortunately, even some first-rate scene work and a dream cast of guest stars can’t fully compensate the viewer for a storyline that stubbornly refuses to go anywhere.

The common denominator in what plays like a succession of short films is a dim-witted but likable young man known by the endearing sobriquet "Fuckhead" (Billy Crudup). Adrift in the confusing social climate of the early ’70s, Fuckhead is at the mercy of a dangerous world, one step ahead of various forms of annihilation.

As the piece meanders along, we see him conceive a child with an unstable, heroin-shooting girlfriend (Samantha Morton); kill time with a self-hating barfly pal (Denis Leary); provide some frighteningly unprofessional primary care alongside a deranged hospital co-worker (Jack Black); and help out at a cheerful mental institution, where he befriends a scarred older patient (Dennis Hopper) and a woman obsessed with her numerous dead lovers (Holly Hunter).

Ill-equipped to survive in the world as he finds it, Fuckhead nonetheless maintains a childlike innocence as he stumbles through life, consuming whatever narcotics are handy and embracing whatever human affection comes his way.

The script by Elizabeth Cuthrell, Lydia Dean Pilcher and David Urrutia suggests he suffers from some form of mild mental illness, but his condition, complicated by his constant substance abuse and emotional trauma, is never stated explicitly.

Mercifully, the film doesn’t reduce all of this down to a Hollywood-type search for an all-healing love that will set Fuckhead straight and send viewers out of the theater feeling good about humanity. Maclean’s work is too honest for that, but all of the integrity and thematic ambitiousness in the world won’t keep an audiences tuned into a narrative that builds no real momentum as it goes.

On a more positive note, the episodic format allowed the indie production to load the individual segments with extended star cameos, nearly all of which are memorable.

Morton is captivating in a nervous, unpredictable part that’s a 180-degree departure from her Oscar-nominated mute in Woody Allen’s SWEET AND LOWDOWN.

The ever-delightful Hunter and HIGH FIDELITY’s Black are predictably strong in their quirky roles, but the real revelation is Leary’s touching work as a guy so angry at life that he tears up the house where he lived in happier days for the few bucks that can be made from selling the copper wiring.

As the only element bridging the various stories, Crudup’s performance has to carry more weight than it would in a conventionally plotted film. Though his leading man looks make him a little hard to buy as one of life’s losers – the Johnny Depp problem – he certainly steps up to the demanding role and demonstrates reasonable chops as a character lead.

His solid, if rarely surprising, work makes one wonder if a truly great performance (we’re talking Daniel Day-Lewis or a young Dustin Hoffman here) would have been enough to draw the film together and make the whole as engaging as the better individual scenes. In any case, JESUS’ SON serves as a reminder of why story collections are so rarely adapted as literally as Johnson’s is here – it’s hard as heck for even someone as obviously talented as Maclean to get a film to work this way. - Mike Tunison - http://www.ifmagazine.com

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originally posted: 10/19/00 01:53:26
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