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source: 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.

Patricia Herman (Toni Collette) is a militant feminist living with her father Stan. She expected a girl but had a baby boy instead. Henry James Herman (Jason Spevack) is smarter than the other kids. One thing he doesn't know is his father. He's a test tube baby. He befriends professor Dr. Slavkin O'Hara (Michael Sheen) who raised his daughter Audrey (Samantha Weinstein) without gender bias and wrote about it as a psychology experiment. Audrey is picked on at school. Dr. O'Hara lost his wife to his oncologist even after taking her name. Henry tells them that Dr. O'Hara is his sperm donor father and the four begin an awkward family but he may not be the father after all. The movie spends every moment creating eccentric wacky characters. It pushes too hard and ends up draining it of its humor. There is a good relationship with the two young leads. Weinstein has a simmering anger while Spevack has the odd loner sensibility. The bigger adult names are restricted by their characters. Writer/director Dennis Lee would be better giving these characters time to develop their relationships together rather than setting them up with every crazy story elements possible.

I would recommend to anyone, do yourself a favor and ignore the snotty critics. As others have mentioned here, I passed on this film for some time due to the bad reviews... None seated in reality as far as I'm concerned. You'll laugh, you'll cry. I was rooting for so many of the characters on so many levels, very few films are able to achieve that kind of depth, especially in an hour and a half. It never ceases to amaze me how these indie films can blow away the 100 million dollar budget films, and on such a regular basis. I firmly believe it's because much of the entertainment industry in California is completely out of touch with the rest of the living/working world (not just the flyover states, as they like to parrot in every 'urban' film); it almost seems to bleed through in every big budget film that the industry holds the rest of the world in contempt, as if anything but red carpets, whining about paparazzi, and gourmet-fashion-enlightenment is utter trash. I'll watch this one again with company, and I love to spread the word of a Rare Hidden Gem! Another bonus: As of today (Jan/13/2013), it's on Netflix, instant stream.

I liked this film from the moment we witness a potted history of Patricia's childhood. Patricia is Henry's mum and Henry is a kind of genius. He is certainly different but who wouldn't be with a mum like Patricia? The relationship between mum and son is a delightful watch as is Henry's growing urge to find his father. And there is Uncle Stan another character of infinite eccentricity for us to enjoy. The beauty of this film is that it doesn't take itself seriously and neither do the characters and yet they are all tangible enough for us to like. It echoes life it really does. When Henry discovers his real background and the identity of the sperm donor then enter Audrey, his half sister, and another lovable quirky character with an equal flair for genius. This is a film made for the many eccentricities you can wring out of such a wacky group of characters not by making cheap fun but by genuinely exploring where these people might go with their lives. It is fun, it is funny, and its ninety odd minutes seem to fly by and so it has to be doing something right.

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

I'm blaming the writer on this one. This film looks great and has great acting, particularly on the part of Jason Spevack, the young incredibly talented actor who plays the title role. But the writing is AWFUL. The "story" is a mishmash of indie fantasy clichés with dialog and story line so predictable it's not difficult for the savvy film viewer to not only guess where the story is going but to know what many of the characters are going to say before they say it. What a waste of effort. This is the sort of film that makes me angry because it probably could have been a really great indie film had it been written by someone else. I think this is supposed to be a comedy, but the only funny scene in the film is where an author burns a huge pile of a book he'd written (I think it was his book, it was difficult to really care about the details) and that scene is only funny because I was wishing the writer had made that same choice with his script.