Hesher Review: Not Your Typical Guardian Angel

The aftermath of a tragedy and the ensuing grief that permeates throughout the lives of the affected family isn’t the subtext one would expect to find in a movie whose central character is a nihilistic nomad with a penchant for pornography and petty vandalism. Yet Hesher, director Spencer Susser’s feature-length debut, introduces its titular antihero, a lanky, often shirtless, chain-smoking vagrant brimming with nonchalant impulse, as id personified, who infiltrates the desolate home of T.J. Forney (Devin Brochu, a child actor to watch), a middle-schooler emotionally paralyzed after his mother’s recent death in a car accident. Played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, (500) Days of Summer) with equal parts balls-to-the-wall tenacity and Spicoli-meets-Bukowski stoner detachment, Hesher breezes into the Forneys’ lives when T.J. throws a rock through the window of the under-construction house where Hesher’s squatting. Security officers soon case the joint and Hesher helps himself to T.J.’s digs – Grandma’s suburban time capsule in the badlands of Southern California.

Most parents would call the police upon sight of a character like Hesher perched on their living room couch, but dad Paul (The Office’s Rainn Wilson, reliably excellent) has dug himself a pharmacological hole so deep he hardly musters a raised eyebrow in the midst of his self-medicated haze of depression. Grandma Madeleine (Piper Laurie, sublime) is short a marble or two but trying her best to help her son and grandson wade through this bog of heartache, and makes an extra place setting at the dinner table for Hesher without so much as a peep.

The first act of the film is a bombastically idiosyncratic meditation on the dichotomy between the lives of the Forneys and the violent drifter archetype of Hesher. T.J. and Paul are equally unable to move forward in their lives, but choose different methods with which to cope with their respective grief. While Paul lumbers through each day in a near catatonic stupor, T.J. is fixated on the one tangible item left of his past: the mangled station wagon his mother died in. He spends much of the movie unsuccessfully pleading with the unsympathetic junkyard owner to resell him the last place he saw his mom alive. Between this and the constant torment of a bully at school, T.J. could use a guiding force to help point him in a healthier direction. Hesher initially turns out to be this idea’s antithesis, a tough-love guardian angel from hell who watches T.J. get his face smashed into a urinal cake, torches the bully’s convertible and ditches T.J. at the scene, and brazenly seduces his crush – soft-spoken, downtrodden cashier Nicole (co-producer Natalie Portman, donning her best pair of dorkifying glasses).

While Hesher’s disregard for social decency and ramifications for his actions make for an interesting portrait of heavy metal rebellion, the film’s script (co-written by Susser and Animal Kingdom scribe David Michod) lingers on the staid complacency of its characters’ existence too long before getting to the real heart of the matter. Only so many power-chord riffs can signal Hesher’s entrance on screen, and one may wonder if he’ll eventually run out of things to destroy. By the time Hesher bonds with Grandma Madeleine over the proper way to use a bong, the film’s winking quirks have begun to overstay their welcome and begin to devolve into surprising schmaltz. Luckily, the emotional framework of such scenes keeps the narrative sturdy throughout, and several moments deliver genuine pathos regarding the Forneys’ struggle to regain their footing in the face of hopelessness.

Hesher isn’t meant to deliver thought-provoking cultural analysis, but rather a slice-of-life coming of age tale – a rather startling revelation, considering its sociopathic protagonist standing center stage. In the end, however, despite all the attention Hesher and his anti-establishment antics may receive, it’s T.J.’s plight that provides the backbone for any available character development. Hesher arrived just in time to light the right fire.

Photo courtesy of © 2011 Newmarket Films