Hesher

Hesher
Run Time: 1 hr 28 min
Release Date: May 13,2011
Directed by: Spencer Susser
Dropps: 7.5/10

Hesher is the story of a young boy T.J. and his father who have moved into his grandmother’s house after a life-changing event. In the wake of the catastrophe his father is self-medicating and T.J. is in a state of sadness along with being bullied at school.  Then TJ runs into Hesher, a loner that lives out of his van, is extremely dirty, full of home made tattoos and very angry.  Hesher then follows T.J. and invites himself into T.J.’s life and his grandmother’s home.  Could this hobo possibly be the thing that T.J. and his family need to get back on track?

Writer/ Director Spencer Susser take the age old story of people dealing with a lose in the family and turns it on its head. Most films with similar themes are full of sadness, woe and depression and the character has to find a way to pull themselves out of their slum but not this film. There are still elements of the self-pity and loathing but it takes a back seat at many points to mild moments of violence, vandalism and conversations that you don’t hear everyday, to put it mildly.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the title role of Hesher in this film of recovery. He walks into this role as a protagonist that’s central role is that of Mary Poppins but a little more violent, angry and favors listening to Metallica over singing a happy tune. He embraces the dirt and griminess of the character along with his combination of anger and disregard for others. His performance is a bit of a throw back to the character Lyle that he portrayed in Manic with the crudeness of Neil from Mysterious Skin.  After a while you begin to like him because even though he says and does a lot of things you don’t agree with, he still shows that he has a soul under the ruff skin. He cares more about these people that he is taking advantage of more than one would think.

The youngest member of the cast is Devin Brochu who plays the lead character of T.J.  Brochu is not new to the business having portrayed the younger version of Matthew McConaugh’s character Connor Mead in The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Charlize Theron’s son in the film In the Valley of Elah and appears in the talked about film Rubber.  Where in the other films he has smaller parts, in this film he is the main character and ties the film together.  Even though he is so young he has a hard good grasp of the tailspin of emotions that his character is going through.

In short this is a film that one would definitely want to catch if it opens in a theater near you. You have also been warned that this may not be the movie for some that are a little more conservative in ideas, basically if you are a really strict rule enforcer and don’t want to hear about people’s intimate details of life or damn is your only curse word do not go.  Happy viewing and don’t become encouraged to set anything on fire after watching this film because even if it is cool in a film it tends to be frowned upon in real life.
-Ashlyn Williams