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Features: DVD
A young man, who sometimes can see into the future, begins an odyssey from rural Iowa to Chicago and Phoenix, losing his drug dependency along the way and discovering his true sense of self.
"One of the best films of the year!" Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert & The Movies
Editor's Note
Alison Maclean's (CRUSH) exhilarating adaptation of Denis Johnson's acclaimed short story collection is a deeply compassionate portrait of one man's descent into drug addiction, filled with a potent blend of surreal imagery and gritty realism. Remaining true to Johnson's original text, and in keeping with the film's substance-soaked subject matter, the film is structured in a blurry, fractured fashion. Billy Crudup stars as FH, a Midwestern twenty-something in the 1970s who has decent intentions, but only seems to make things worse for everyone, including himself. When he meets Michelle (played with ferocious intensity by Samantha Morton), he finds himself falling deeper into the dangerous, desperate world of drug abuse. A tragic event forces FH to confront his destructive lifestyle head on, even when it appears it might be too late. Landing in Arizona, he gets a job writing the newsletter for an assisted living facility, and finds redemption when he's least expecting it. Crudup and Morton, both incredibly engaging screen presences, make JESUS' SON a powerful, darkly comic, and ultimately uplifting motion picture. Holly Hunter, Jack Black, and Denis Leary all make brief appearances as quirky characters FH meets along his journey.
Plot Summary
Based on Denis Johnson's 1992 short story collection, JESUS' SON is a darkly comic depiction of an individual whose descent into drug addiction threatens to ruin him. Billy Crudup is FH, a well-intentioned loser who falls under the spell of Michelle (Samantha Morton). Together, they shoot heroin, fight, make up, and repeat the cycle. After a horrible tragedy devastates FH, he finds himself in Arizona, working at an assisted living facility, searching for redemption in sobriety. Alison Maclean's film is an impressive and entertaining portrait of debauchery, successfully blending drug-induced visions with an unflinching realism.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Surround | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Access | | Widescreen Version Enhanced For 16X9 TVs | | Theatrical Trailer |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Ingram Entertainment |
| Release Date: 7/22/2003 |
| Running Time: 109 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1999 | | Catalog ID: 8354-D | | UPC: 00031398835424 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: Arabic [CC], English [CC], English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Memorable Quotes| "The travelling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we'd have an accident in the storm. I didn't care. They said they'd take me all the way."----FH (Billy Crudup) in voice--over |
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| | Professional Reviews | Variety
"A sweetly ingratiating performance by Billy Crudup and a volatile one by Samantha Morton....[The director] evinces a talent for atmosphere and extracting strong values from individual scenes..." 9/20-26/1999 p.88Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...Suffused with irreverent, outrageous humor....Crudup's astonishing performance is energizing..." 07/??/2000 p.33 Premiere
"...A lively, quirky, lyrically rambling meditation on life, death, and fate among the narcotically numbed-out....Unsparing in its depiction..." 06/??/2000 p.23 Film Comment
"...[Crudup] is wonderful..." 11/01/1999 p.34-5 Entertainment Weekly
"...[Crudup is] sublime....An epiphany as credible as it is brilliantly staged..." Rating: A- 09/29/2000 p.110 Rolling Stone
"...Maclean keeps her mesmerizing film spinning from hilarity to heartbreak....[Crudup is] an actor of fire and grace..." 07/06/2000 p.146 The New York Times 8 of 10
One of the pleasures of Jesus' Son is watching a filmmaker take risks and discover new resources of style. True to her source, Ms. Maclean tells the young man's story in a looping, absent-minded manner... Mr. Crudup plays a lost, irresponsible and stupid young man with discipline and intelligence, using every muscle of his face to suggest the unreachable emotion and the accidental goodness of his character...
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
...Jesus' Son surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as any I've seen this year, and one as harrowing... this is not a drug movie like any you've seen... - Roger Ebert
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