Jesus Henry Christ

The second film of Singapore Night, Jesus Christ Henry got into the lineup because of Singaporean Sukee Chew's involvement being one of three producers of the film, an indie production that made its World Premiere in the Tribeca Film Festival a few weeks ago, which drew quite a mixed response with comments that it had tried to hard. Written and directed by Korean American Dennis Lee based upon his short film back in 2003, I thought this movie garnered reactions that it didn't quite deserve for trying too hard, being crafted in the same hyperactive mold such as quirky comedies that have been seen around the region such as Citizen Dog and true blue Singaporean film 18 Grams of Love even.

There are a number of focus shifts in the film that tangent off its intended protagonist Henry James Herman (Jason Spevack), a petri-dish baby conceived through in-vitro fertilization technique opted by his feminist mom Patricia Herman (Toni Collette), turning out to be the unintentional genius with a videographic memory, retaining every single little detail that he's experienced since conception. Jason Spevack would probably be yet another child actor to look out for since Freddie Highmore grew up, and this film will serve as his showreel if not for being upstaged by the other cast members given the narrative shifts that put the spotlight on them.

Specifically I thought the film devoted a lot more time (not that I'm complaining) to the Patricia character, beginning with a rather lengthy introduction to the Herman family and the demise of each and every individual character beginning with Patricia's mother right down to her brothers, each in a rather comical manner that you'll likely be surprised at its rather nonchalant manner in which to bump them off, with black comedy by the bucket loads of course. And this set the course of the film to be rather gag filled in almost every scene put on screen, that for some it may be tiring and trying since it could have felt like a water torture treatment being force fed with in-your-face comedic moments. I appreciated what it had tried to do, but opinions on humour especially, and how to deliver it, will obviously be polarized.

Yes like a typical comedic indie film, this one is filled with its fair share of quirky characters. Outside of the mother-son Hermans, and Patricia's father Stan (Frank Moore) who forms a very strong bond with his grandson Henry, the story also goes out to another dysfunctional father-daughter pair when Henry embarks on a mission to discover his biological father. This brings Michael Sheen into the fray as Dr Slavkin O'Hara, a professor whose book "Born Gay or Made That Way?" becomes a living hell for his daughter Audrey (Samantha Weinstein) when she is the subject of his book, and becomes the constant taunt of her schoolmates.

Story-wise, the coming together of these two families in a sort of identity-crisis form the bulk of the situational comedy they find themselves in, but the pairing of both Weinstein and Spaveck together moved the story forward with both putting in strong performances and holding their own against two very powerful thespians in Sheen and Collette, although Weinstein probably upstaged Spaveck a little with her portrayal as the extremely cynical and sarcastic little girl quite unfazed by her tormentors. Again there are plenty of laugh out loud wicked moments that you will probably wonder if you're laughing at the film, or with it especially in its darker moments that could be quite unsettling.

Production values are quite spiffy given the big name executive producer behind this film, though Dennis Lee and Sukee Chew were quite tight lipped on how much this film actually cost since it looked like a multi-million dollar movie. If you're still game for quirkiness in all characters of your indie films, then Jesus Henry Christ will still be your cup of tea if you see beyond, or tolerate some eyebrow raising moments with its less than friendly jibes against lesbians/feminists as well as a white man who thinks he's black, otherwise those jaded will find fault with almost every frame of the film in trying too hard with wild absurdity in characters. Split down the middle, depending on your mood and attitude.

I have to say I was impressed, pleasantly by this indie production. I did chance upon the movie and I did not expect much from the story line. I thought it would be some kind of children offering and I was prepared to sample and leave it. However I found a little gem of a film. It is funny, well acted and briskly paced. The story of the little genius is more incidental than central to the theme. I particularly like the black humour that one wouldn't expect associated with with child actors. All in all it shows that mega budget are not needed to produce an intelligent, humorous and entertaining production. Well done Dennis Lee. I will watch out for this director/writer.

I was in the library one afternoon, browsing through the DVD titles looking for something to jump out at me. Jesus Henry Christ, caught my eye because of its two leads, Michael Sheen and Toni Collette. I love their work and was surprised to see a film starring both of them, that I hadn't heard of.

Toni Collette is the single mother of Henry - a product of sperm donor father. Being a child genius, Henry knows all he needs to. Everything except the most important thing, "Who is his father?"

Several leaps of faith later and Henry is lead to Michael Sheen, who may or may not be the sperm donor. And 'hilarity' ensues. OK, I guess I may not have been very charitable there, but the film is not a great one. At the films core is an interesting idea and as I have titled my review "It's heart is in the right place". But I feel the film doesn't really know where it's going or what it wanted to be. It switches from moments of farce, black comedy and drama. It also shoots off at tangents, leaving several threads hanging.

Sheen and Collette do the best they can with the material at hand. But I couldn't help wondering how or indeed why either, but especially Sheen had ended up in this film.

The film describes itself as being "quirky". I am suspicious of anything that describes itself as quirky. Surely that is for the viewer to decide?

That said, the film is enjoyable in the most part, and it did make me laugh a couple of times. Perhaps best watched on a wet Saturday afternoon, if there is nothing better to do.

I have given it a 6/10 score - mainly due to Collette and Sheen. With lesser actors the score would have been less.

The film has its bad points which are expressed in other reviews, In this one I will only be dealing with the howevers... Whilst the storyline consists of the undeveloped stories of each of the main characters and ends a little too neatly there are moments within the film which make it worth watching, largely due to the almost characteur like portrayal of the main characters. Whilst the characters are seen by many critics as shallow there are a lot of characters in it to enjoy. Unfortunately what made the film enjoyable for me personally was the mingling of the eccentricities of each characters, I say unfortunately as this seems to be where it falters in many peoples eyes: Whilst interesting the characters may be, the running time of the film does not allow for the full realization of the characters. I did not mind this so much as I have personally found in wes anderson films (tho i still love them) that sometimes the building of the characters have slowed the film down to what is usually a melancholy pace. JHC is seen as a poor version of a wes anderson film but as a wes anderson fan I found the eccentricities of the characters enjoyable all the same, despite the troubles in fully realising them in the plot. If there had been another half an hour added and the films dead ends reworked into satisfying conclusions this film could have easily been an 8+ /10

"The truth is, Henry, you are a miracle of modern medicine." After ten year old Henry (Spevack) is suspended from kindergarten he has a talk with his grandfather. When he is told that his grandfather has located his half-sister Henry finally thinks he has a chance to find his father. This movie started off very funny and almost held it the whole way. The humor is pretty dark at times and you laugh at things you don't feel like you should. The kid that plays Henry is very good in this and so is the girl that plays his sister. I really like these kind of movies about dysfunctional families for some reason. Michael Sheen's character is especially funny and I hope he plays more roles like this. There isn't really anything new or amazing to this one but it is very entertaining and funny almost the whole way through. I recommend this. Overall, not really anything original but the actors make this very much worth seeing. I liked it. I give it a B+.