Product Details

• Actors: Billy Crudup, Robert Michael Kelly, Torben Brooks, Dierdre Lewis, Jimmy Moffit
• Directors: Alison Maclean
• Writers: David Urrutia, Elizabeth Cuthrell, Denis Johnson, Oren Moverman
• Producers: David Urrutia, Elizabeth Cuthrell, Lydia Dean Pilcher
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: August 28, 2001
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004YRJ0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,995 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Fans of the short stories in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son will wonder how anyone could film a book so beautifully, radiantly, defiantly strange. The good news is that Alison Maclean's film version is more than just faithful to the book's spirit: It's the closest thing to a visual equivalent of Johnson's visionary prose. As a series of vignettes in the life of an unnamed Midwestern junkie-slash-holy fool, the stories are linked more through imagery than through anything so linear as a plot. Maclean preserves this episodic structure but adds just enough narrative glue to make the whole thing hang together as a film. (And wisely so; if she hadn't, there'd have been no role at all for Samantha Morton, brilliant here as Michelle, the narrator's girlfriend.) With a hero called Fuckhead, you know this isn't going to be entertainment for the whole family, and some of the scenes of drug use and associated gore are grim indeed. But the movie looks just right, and some of its images are so beautiful it hurts: old movies playing in an empty drive-in, snow swirling all around; a naked woman parasailing through the sky with her long red hair streaming behind.

Maclean also coaxes wonderful performances from a dream-indie cast, including Morton, the magnetic Billy Crudup as Fuckhead, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, an uncharacteristically understated Denis Leary, and even, in a gruesome cameo, Denis Johnson himself. (Hint: Look for the knife. Then look away quickly.) Once again, Jack Black hijacks every frame in which he appears, and his turn as a pill-popping orderly gives new meaning to the phrase "I save lives." Things drag a little during the last half-hour, but squirm not: Following Fuckhead through rehab and beyond, the book's closing scenes are genuinely redemptive without hitting the audience over the head with a "lesson" of any kind. Jesus' Son is Maclean's first feature film since 1992's Crush; let's hope she won't make us wait as long before the next fix. --Mary Park

From The New Yorker

The new Alison Maclean film, adapted from the short stories of Denis Johnson, is her first offering since "Crush," and it maintains her careful interest in careless lives. Billy Crudup, who gets more interesting with every movie, plays a chronic drifter. We meet him in Iowa in the nineteen-seventies (the golden age of drifting), and at other times and places of his own choosing. He falls in love, roughly speaking, with a junkie (Samantha Morton); some of their scenes together are hard to watch, but Maclean's direction is more tender than indulgent, and the movie grips hardest when times are most raw. As the mood lifts and lightens in the second half, with the hero redeeming himself by tending to equally troubled souls, the blaze of the film dies down. Still, not since Robert Altman turned his attention to Raymond Carver has a director seemed so determined to master the ramshackle. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, October 25, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jesus' Son (DVD)

"Jesus' Son" barely got a theatrical release, so here's your chance to discover one of the quirkiest and most heartfelt movies to come along since the `70s output of the late, great director Hal Ashby ("Harold & Maude," "Coming Home").

From Denis Johnson's low-key, disjointed short stories about addicts and outcasts, director Alison Maclean and her writers/adapters have distilled a narrative that's both goofy and lucid. The story drifts and meanders, as it should - our protagonist is a survivor who's still trying to comprehend his salvation. Anyone who took drugs in the `70s will be stunned by how familiar and true is the recreation of that era; bigger-budgeted period pieces often settle for easy nostalgia via bad wigs and hit parades, but here, offbeat locations and music selections spark forgotten memories of two-laned interstates, abandoned drive-ins and AM radio.

Unlike flashier but similar-themed junkie laments, "Jesus' Son" is a triumph of substance over style: empathy becomes more crucial than an extended light show. Not to suggest Maclean hasn't made strong stylistic choices - indeed her tone approaches a breaking fever dream. Devices like split screen, chapter cards and black humor are so effective specifically because they're used economically.

Most inspired, however, is the casting. There are no weak performances. Even cameos by well-knowns like Dennis Hopper and Holly Hunter are beautifully modulated. For instance, just when you suspect Hunter might be `phoning in' a loony AA caricature, she floors you with a devastating - and painfully real - emotional outpouring. Likewise, Jack Black and Denis Leary embody larger-than-life characters without going over-the-top. As for the leads, Samantha Morton starts with a skin-deep role (her character is barely in the book) and delicately creates a multi-dimensional junkie unlike what we're used to seeing: sweet, spiteful, sexy, smart, screwed up, and ultimately willing to give all for love. It is more difficult to praise Billy Crudup ... because words inadequately describe his particular genius. Sure, he has obvious talent and charisma; if he didn't, the movie would collapse. But he goes further, demonstrating masterful subtlety and restraint. Listen to the timbre of his voice-overs; for once narration doesn't sound like it's being read, but recalled. Then watch him listen to the other characters, something most film actors aren't very good at. So real and surprising are his expressions that the director lets the camera linger on his dazed reactions. It's been said elsewhere that his supporting cast manages to steal all their scenes. Without disagreeing, it might be more accurate to say that Crudup generously gives them their scenes.

Due to theme and structure, "Jesus' Son" won't appeal to impatient audiences who've developed bad movie-watching habits by OD'ing on popcorners. They could say there's not enough action, or the ending is too long (it's not - the third act carefully sets up the redemption, then hope, so crucial to this story). But for fans of independent movies, truthful acting, and particularly fans of Hal Ashby and the great American cinema of the 1970s, "Jesus' Son" should not be overlooked.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real deal - profound and entertaining, July 23, 2000

By 

T.S. Morris (Austin, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This movie changed the way I look at life. We all take so much for granted and it could all end at any moment. This is one of the main ideas of Jesus' Son. The main character, FH, stumbles through life while many of his friends die, yet he remains unharmed and only gradually begins to change his ways. This movie may be about death and pain, but it is optimistic and hopeful; as long as life continues, something good can happen. There is a surprising amount of humor in the film, all of it compassionate, it doesn't result to mocking the characters or the situations as so many movies these days do.

Some people have complained that Jesus' Son imitates Pulp Fiction in its narrative. This is untrue - the story unfolds as FH tells it, sometimes he doubles back to give more detail or fill in gaps, but for the most part it is linear. FH's narration gives the movie much of its personality.

The acting is astoundingly realistic throughout. Of all the movies I've seen this year, Billy Crudup's performance is the best. Hopefully he will soon achieve the widespread recognition he deserves. The entire cast performs admirably, every actor gets at least one scene to shine, with Crudup providing the link from one to the next. My favorite scene was Dennis Hopper's - his final line speaks volumes about life and death and the human condition.

The direction is self assured and impressive. There is not much self conscious camera trickery, and when it is used, it is to good effect. The soundtrack is another stong point, all of the songs enhance the mood of the scene perfectly.

Jesus' Son reminds me of last year's Bringing Out the Dead in the way it subtly reveals so much about the nature of redemption and the beauty that can be found in life if you just allow yourself to see it. Also, this is one of the few movies that gets better the more you think about it.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark laughter: tears: redemption, June 14, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jesus' Son (DVD)

My first take on first viewing was: right, I want to watch a movie about some disgusting, sleazy, young idiots. The sex. The violence. The drugs. And then, you start to pay attention to the narrator's voice, and you begin to understand the intelligence, the attempt at a philosopy of life that lies behind the voice. And you laugh as a dead guy gets beat up in a corn field.
I own two movies--the other is John Huston's "The Dead". I only buy movies that have enough complexity in script, acting, and production, that you can watch over and over and still see new things.
This is a movie that changes gears on you constantly. One viewing will not suffice.
I still scream with laughter when I see it, and I still weep.