Hesher is a movie I really wanted to like. The film stars the lovely Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Rainn Wilson. It garnered a healthy amount of buzz on the festival circuit thanks to screenings at Sundance, SXSW, and even Comic-Con. This should have been a cool, little indie flick instead of a Frankenstein-esque cinematic creature stitched together from disparate clichés.
Young TJ (Devin Brochu) has suffered a tragic loss due to the death of his mother in an auto accident. His father, Paul (Wilson), suffers from a crippling depression. Paul does nothing aside from popping pills and sleeping on the couch, unshaven and unkempt. Grandma (Piper Laurie) shuffles around the house in her nightgown and slippers mindlessly going about her daily business. Both are oblivious of the deep pain TJ is in, which is made all the more worse by a ruthless bully. Then, along comes Hesher…
TJ unfortunately crosses paths with the titular Hesher (Gordon-Levitt) while he was squatting in a half-constructed house. Hesher is the prototypical heavy metal burnout with tattered clothes and long black hair. He has a tattoo of an extended middle finger across his back and a stick figure man blowing his own brains out on his chest. He cranks Motorhead from his black van, the kind usually driven by serial killers and 1980's garage bands. At first you think Hesher might be some ethereal character existing solely in the imagination of TJ. He seems to be the boy's raw id unchained by a fragile psyche. Hesher even appears mysteriously into a scene to the blaring, opening guitar riffs of "The Shortest Straw" by Metallica.
Alas, Hesher is not the Kerrang! version of Harvey. He is all too real and he isn't the most genial person around. Hesher decides to crash at TJ's house. He strips down to his tightie whities, smokes like a chimney, and rigs the cable so he can get all the porn channels for free. When TJ protests, Hesher grabs him by the throat and threatens to do unspeakable things to the kid's genitals. He doesn't bother to help TJ when the bully shoves his face into a urinal. Nope, Hesher's response is to drag TJ along while he torches the tormentor's car, then ditches him to face the wrath of the authorities.
Portman (who also served as a producer) dons a pair of vintage nerd glasses to play Nicole, a supermarket clerk who saves TJ from a beating. TJ develops a crush on her (who wouldn’t?) so Hesher naturally shows up to sabotage their budding friendship.
Hesher somehow manages to put this broken family back together as they struggle through the various stages of grief. He is by no means a saintly big brother figure. He is violent and crude, but is infused with a semblance of humanity thanks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance. The highlight of the film is easily a final act monologue delivered by Hesher that is darkly humorous and oddly affecting. Gordon-Levitt displays a lot of manic energy that director Spencer Susser (who also co-wrote the script with Animal Kingdom’s David Michod) is unable to properly tap.
Hesher is tonally inconsistent as it bounces around from black comedy to cornball drama. It feels like a metal song that whips back and forth between devil-horn headbanging chords to lighter waving ballad notes without a moment's notice.
Rating: ** (*****)
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