Jesus Henry Christ

"Jesus Henry Christ" is a quirky indie comedy with a genetics, homosexuality and heresy bent. It starts off with heavy '70s-influenced comedy which you just have to hustle through to get to the heart of the story. The plot might seem a bit eccentric, but that is probably necessary if the comedy is going to be actually funny. Henry is a genius test-tube baby. He might be a freak but his mother (Toni Collette) wants to raise him normally.

Obviously Henry doesn't have many friends; that's why he's the classic indie protagonist. It also doesn't help that Catholic school headmasters don't like it when he denounces God's existence. Henry has always been able to handle himself just fine until the question of who his father is keeps popping up.

The introductions of his probable half-sister (Samantha Weinstein) and father (Michael Sheen) are possibly the funniest and most brilliant character set-up scenes. Audrey is Dr. Slavkin O'Hara's natural daughter but has decided to raise her as a psychology experiment in a world free of gender bias. Needless to say, she wishes she didn't have a father. Weinstein was uniquely beautiful and sympathetically hilarious as an adolescent with the hardest life imaginable. Sheen was funny, original and amazingly empathetic as a father/professor that is a perfect mix of 30 Rock's Wesley Snipes and the pedantic one from Midnight in Paris.

The spinning camera choices get annoying, the character and situation oddities can be off-putting, but it's also damn hilarious especially if you like anything that tries to turn "normal" social and cultural values upside down. "Jesus Henry Christ" is clever, particularly well-acted by most of the cast, and so original that you stare in disbelief but then laugh-out-loud out of awkwardness, relatability and genuine appreciation.

I picked this movie due to an expiring groupon, and the movie theatre had a poor selection of films. i came into this with no expectations, in fact, low expectations, due to the 5.8 rating on IMDb.

but i was quite blown away by this comedy, right from the very start. 10 seconds into it, i knew i was going to enjoy this film and i truly did.

it's a snappy film that moves fast. exaggerated but funny and with good reasoning. also has a nice heartwarming side to it too. it has a unique, and rather strange storyline. but this is a movie where execution trumps idea. the characters were quirky and multi-faceted. child actors were great too.

i do wish we got to see how the little guy turned out! i am really glad i got to watch this movie. i think it ranks one of my top favourite comedies! and i'm still baffled at its poor ratings! to be fair, comedies are usually not highly rated. PLUS i am a big fan of indie comedies. i really enjoyed 500 days of summer, thank you for smoking, etc. although i really though juno was overrated. i think this was funnier and better than juno!

I liked this film from the moment we witness a potted history of Patricia's childhood. Patricia is Henry's mum and Henry is a kind of genius. He is certainly different but who wouldn't be with a mum like Patricia? The relationship between mum and son is a delightful watch as is Henry's growing urge to find his father. And there is Uncle Stan another character of infinite eccentricity for us to enjoy.

The beauty of this film is that it doesn't take itself seriously and neither do the characters and yet they are all tangible enough for us to like. It echoes life it really does. When Henry discovers his real background and the identity of the sperm donor then enter Audrey, his half sister, and another lovable quirky character with an equal flair for genius.

This is a film made for the many eccentricities you can wring out of such a wacky group of characters not by making cheap fun but by genuinely exploring where these people might go with their lives. It is fun, it is funny, and its ninety odd minutes seem to fly by and so it has to be doing something right.

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.

Of course nothing wrong with a more little and indie type of movie, as long as its good or compelling, which just most often isn't the case with this movie.

The whole movie came across as a bit of a pointless one to me. the story is lacking a clear purpose and by the end of it, it also doesn't feel like anything has been resolved.

Besides, everything in this movie feels far from natural. I'm not even necessarily talking about its story and the situations that are happening in it but more so about its characters and their relationships amongst each other. People fall in love, just because the story tells them to but not because there is any chemistry or any good reason for the two of them to fall in love with each other. Or at least the movie just doesn't give any. And the movie is being like this, with just about everything and everyone that is in this movie. A girl is weird, just because she is and a boy is supposed to be insanely smart, even while the movie doesn't ever give you any good reasons to believe this all. The whole way they get presented in this story and react to each other feel far from likely or natural. It just didn't made this movie a very pleasant one.

To me it's being very obvious that Dennis Lee had seen a bit too many Wes Anderson movies and he tries to be just like him, with his style and approach. It uses similar tropes, such as having quirky characters in it, that however do absolutely nothing good and interesting and by turning something that normally isn't funny at all into something comedic, just and only in the way it gets presented but not because it's actually something funny. No, I'm far from a big Wes Anderson fan, so it's also no big surprise that I really didn't liked this movie either, since it's simply being a lite- and less clever or original version of a Wes Anderson movie.

It's not a horrible movie, just not really one that I could ever like watching or felt like it was doing anything clever or compelling, with neither its different plot lines or any of its characters.

5/10

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