Hesher

★★★

(2012)

The Hesher in question is this odd little film’s heavy metal loving, morally skewed sociopathic title character (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), though its difficult to see why. The crux of the film is in fact firmly upon the young T.J (Devin Bonchu) who is grieving the loss of his mother and drifting away from his father (Rainn Wilson) and grandmother (Piper Laurie). Hesher, an almost complete stranger powers his way into living in the family’s garage and tries, in his own bong smoking, Metallica worshiping way to drag the family through his own type of anarchic catharsis, with T.J taking most of the brunt, especially after he develops a crush on cashier, Nicole (Natalie Portman).

Director Spencer Susser gets some great performances from the cast, Gordon-Levitt obviously revealing in every swearword he yells, beer his drinks and fart he produces. Portman, geeky and lost, does well but it’s Rainn Wilson and Piper Laurie who run away with the film by almost doing nothing. Wilson’s forever hanging face and Laurie’s sweet doting Grandmother are the subtle little gem’s hidden in a film full of misery and rage. The young Devin Bonchu’s awkwardness is also used perfectly as he looks for a mother in Portman and a bigger brother in Hesher.

sadly though, performances aside, somehow it just doesn’t hang together. Does Susser to want to separate grief and angst by embodying them in separate characters? If so Hesher fails as a character study of but creates something fresh and often succeeds in avoiding the more melancholic soapy aspects of, say,  Rabbit Hole by using a character more outrageous and lonely than anything else in it to help ease the pain.

The oddness of the character’s roles with regard to each other does seem like a bit of a mess, but Hesher certainly does well in shying away from sentiment and very nearly absurdity towards the films strangely moving finale.