Hesher (2011)

His name is Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). That’s all we know. Is that his first name or last name? How old is he? Where did he come from? What does he want? “I don’t know” is the only answer young T.J. Forney (Devin Brochu) can give to these questions. All he knows is that he made the mistake of attracting the wrong stray dog to follow him home.

The film begins as a sad portrait of grief. T.J. lost his mother in a car accident two months prior, and he’s developed an obsession about the wrecked remains of the car she died in. His widower father, Paul (Rainn Wilson), has sunk into unshaven, medicated depression, dragging T.J. along to grief counseling sessions, and selling the wrecked car to a scrapyard because “it’s not healthy” to keep in front of the house anymore. This father and son, nearly empty shells by this point, are living an almost zombie-like existence with only Paul’s aging mother (Piper Laurie) for company.

That is, until friendless, bicycle-riding lone wolf T.J. breaks a construction-site window in a random act of vandalism and draws the attention of Hesher, a long-haired, crudely tattooed, and forcefully violent scumbag with a nasty beat-up van. Hesher stalks T.J. and moves right into their house without invitation, threatening to kill his whole family if T.J. doesn’t play along that they’re “friends.”

Grandma is obliviously welcoming to their new houseguest, and though Paul expresses concern at first, he’s so disconnected from his son and from life in general that he seems to oddly accept the presence of this outrageous, violent trespasser. And Hesher, relentlessly following T.J. wherever he goes, only exacerbates the boy’s conflict with a school bully (Brendan Hill), and completely befouls T.J.’s interest in a possible substitute maternal figure, a financially struggling supermarket checkout clerk (Natalie Portman).

Hesher is an awkward movie, almost bipolar in nature. It begins as a serious depiction of a small family coping with grief and strained relations, somewhat magnified in dramatic intensity by being seen from the point of view of the young protagonist. And Devin Brochu delivers an exceptional performance for a boy his age, clearly demonstrating T.J.’s conflicted emotional state even if he can’t easily articulate it. Through his eyes, we see the harsh realities of what he’s facing at home, at school, and in his life (although the flashback scene of his mother’s death is needless, predictable, and literally overkill).

But then Hesher enters the house, his surprise appearance punctuated by not one but TWO heavy-metal guitar stabs on the soundtrack, and though the audience may laugh at that, it suddenly pushes this emotionally intimate drama out to an arm’s length. It takes us out of the picture in a disjointed way. Hesher is mean-spirited, crude, and violent–he even frames the boy for a felony. Yet Hesher is the comic relief of the film, with many of his scenes and lines designed to generate laughter, even of the nervously uncomfortable sort. Yes, I laughed along with the audience at a number of moments in the film, but on second thought I felt ashamed for doing so and wanted to go home and take a shower.

What makes this film even trickier to assess is the incendiary performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Hesher. He’s no longer the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun, and he’s way beyond his supporting role in Inception. His Hesher is a rampaging id, afraid of nothing, a bare-chested force to be reckoned with. He’s fascinating to watch, and consequently he becomes both the film’s greatest asset and one of its major liabilities. His presence is so galvanizing, with his unpredictable swings from violence to humor, that it waters down any believable dramatic punch. Gordon-Levitt’s performance is the unforgettable focal point of the film, yet he strangely distracts the film from honest story or character development.

Rainn Wilson plays yet another socially maladjusted loser, as he did in the recent and terrible Super, but he’s more tolerable here in a smaller and wiser role. Piper Laurie has aged considerably since the last time I saw her, on Twin Peaks (then I reminded myself that was 20 years ago!), but she still has a few acting chops. Oscar-winner Natalie Portman does okay here, but hers is a sketchy role that seems artificially woven into the storyline.

It feels like debuting writer-director Spencer Susser and his cowriter David Michôd (creator of last year’s Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom) had an interesting premise for Hesher, but couldn’t figure out how to resolve it. The movie tries to walk the dark-comedy tightrope, balancing between shocking violence and edgy humor, but by the third act it collapses into a simplistic psychological mess that’s only superficially satisfying. It reminded me of the 1994 film The Ref, another dark-edged comedy about a home invasion, which completely shattered its potential with a nonsensical, upbeat ending that felt like a Disney studio mandate.

In the long run, Hesher is like a feature-length version of the old Saturday Night Live horror movie spoof, “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave,” in which John Belushi played a houseguest who has worn out his welcome. Hesher may make you scream, too, either with fear, laughter, or disgust. Hopefully viewers don’t think Hesher is cool enough to emulate, because you wouldn’t want him, or anyone who looks or acts like him, in your home, either.