The Art Is Deceitful Above All Things

In the past several weeks, the literary world was rocked by not one but three scandals surrounding the authenticity of books that were purported to be non-fiction, or based on real events. There was of course James Frey, whose career was shattered into a million little pieces on national television when he admitted to gross fabrication (and taught us all a valuable lesson about pissing-off Oprah). Then there was the case of Nasdijj, the supposed fetal alcohol syndrome-inflicted Navajo author who told of abuse, alcoholism, and rape on the reservation, who in fact turned out to be the very white gay-porn author Timothy Barrus. Yet the most interesting scandal of the bunch has to be l'affaire LeRoy, which concerns the no-longer-mysterious identity of JT LeRoy, the alleged homeless teenage transgendered truck-stop prostitute with AIDS who wrote the collection of autobiographical stories, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, and who managed to build an impressive network of celebrity supporters which included Madonna, Bono, Gus van Sant, Tom Waits, Dave Eggers, etc. LeRoy also caught the eye of actress/director/brat Asia Argento, who has now turned those tales of woe into a feature length film. Filmbrain can only hope that Argento had no doubts about LeRoy and his story, for what other possible defense can there be for making this utterly repulsive film. That LeRoy has turned out to be nothing more than the fictional creation of a middle-aged woman leaves us wondering -- would Argento have made the film had she known it was a work of fiction? (And does she, along with the other duped celebs, feel like a jackass?) Filmbrain hasn't read any of LeRoy's books, but if the film is a fair indication, he can't imagine how anybody could mistake these exaggerated tales of serial abuse for the truth. The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things opens with seven year-old Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett) being turned over to his birth-mother Sarah (Asia Argento, doing her best Courtney Love impersonation), a sadistic, emotionally unstable, drug-addicted prostitute who has no real interest in the boy, other than as an object for abuse. (Why the boy was taken from good foster parents and handed over to such an irresponsible woman is never made clear.) The two hit the road on a journey to nowhere, and for the next ninety minutes we get to watch as Jeremiah is the victim of seemingly endless acts of psychological, physical, and sexual assault. From the drugs and verbal abuse his mother shoves down his throat, to being violently whipped or raped by one of Sarah's many men, Jeremiah (like his biblical namesake) becomes a martyr for everybody, albeit a causeless one. After spending a few years with his abusive fundamentalist Christian grandparents (Ornella Muti and Peter Fonda), Jeremiah (now played by Dylan & Cole Sprouse) reunites with Sarah for a second round of excursions into violence and rape, with an added bonus of poisoning (just to keep it interesting.) The film doesn't end as much as it just stops, with nothing learned or resolved, and Argento's undeveloped, arcless characters no different than they were at the start. Argento's filmmaking is none too impressive, and her attempts at gritty realism wind up looking terribly amateurish. Even cameos by the likes of Winona Ryder, Jeremy Sisto, and Michael Pitt do little to help matters any. The entire project is infused with enough narcissism to make Vincent Gallo blush -- even more so than her debut feature, the autobiographical Scarlet Diva. She draws way too much attention to her performance (while stifling everybody else's) and there's a self-congratulatory air throughout the whole film, as if Argento is continually reminding us how brave and understanding she is by bringing LeRoy's story to the screen. In what has to be one of the most pretentious end-credit sequences of all time, we see Argento's hands thumbing through her well-worn copy of the book, showing us in detail the many underlined passages and margin notes she made. Please! Child abuse is a very serious subject, and any one of the events depicted is enough to result in long lasting damage. Strung together as they are, the film becomes a misanthropic circus of cruelty, which goes out of its way to shock with graphic images. Yet even if the story wasn't a hoax, and somehow one child did endure all of Emily Albert's manufactured evil, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is little more than an exercise in exploitation that revels in its many disturbing moments. If Todd Solondz and Gregg Araki went on a three-day crystal meth bender in a locked room with a typewriter, they wouldn't come up with material this vile. If you hate kids, this is your film. Filmbrain can admit to feeling more than a tinge of schadenfreude towards the rich and famous that were duped by the faux enfant terrible. But will the scandal have any effect on the reception of Argento's film? We'll find out next month.