JT LeRoy

5/10 - interesting true story doesn't translate well in this whacky indie

It's 2001 San Francisco. Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart) visits her brother Geoffrey Knoop (Jim Sturgess) and his wife Laura (Laura Dern). Laura writes the novel Sarah under the pen name JT LeRoy with a picture from a thrift store. It's a fictional biography of a nameless abused boy whose mother Sarah is a prostitute in West Virginia. Laura has been giving a voice to JT on the phone and now she wants to use Savannah as the physical presentation of the boy. Laura pretends to be JT's British assistant who controls his every move. Eva (Diane Kruger) is a fan taken with the mysterious JT.

I'm getting a little tired of Kristen Stewart's intense reticent. She keeps doing the same moves. Savy is not the most compelling protagonist in this story anyways. This really has to be Laura's story. The only way to place her concluding speech in any context is to show her life. Savy doesn't seem to have agency at the beginning. It doesn't make her that compelling until she starts taking charge of herself. Whenever Eva comments on their phone calls, I keep thinking that the phone calls should be done on camera. Savy is the second or third most interesting character in her own story. It's an interesting story nevertheless.

This was an interesting true story was not aware of until trailer on someone's blog. I knew nothing of it beforehand so that was nice as very much pop culture person. Now back to my review title. Laura Dern is great as in almost every role acted in. Kristen Stewart like most strong opinion not a good actor. If JT was played by different actor I think this would be better movie overall. Kristen is same in every role, enough said! Give it a look see just to know how crazy this true story is! 5/10

I had never heard of the story of JT LeRoy before watching Justin Kelly's "Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy". It's certainly a fascinating story, even if the movie never totally hits the mark in telling the story.

The strong point is the performances. Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Jim Sturgess, Diane Kruger and Kelvin Harrison put on excellent performances. I guess that if there's a problem, it's that the whole story was too much to fit in a movie; maybe it would've worked better as a miniseries.

All in all, it's not a bad movie, it just feels incomplete. I do recommend the movie, even if it never fully lives up to its potential. I'd say that in the mid-to-late 2010s, Kristen Stewart fully broke away from that vampire franchise that was nothing but an espousal of Mormon ideology.

The story is interesting, but the film is not particularly engaging. Laura Dern is great in the film, as usual. The rest is pretty bland, and does not leave a lasting impression.