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The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) More at IMDbPro »

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52 out of 62 people found the following comment useful :-
Parenting should be illegal to some people........, 30 huhtikuu 2006

Author: angelkarmachic from Scotland

I watched The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. I had never heard of it and apparently there was a lot of controversy surrounding the book. It seems it was a bit of a James Frey hoax thing but I really did like James Freys book and will be getting this one as soon as I'm not poor anymore, lol.

OK back to the movie...........

There is nothing 'good' in this movie, it was a breath taking, horrific piece of film. It will take a strong constitution to be able to watch it. It's not something that everyone could handle and is a topic I generally avoid like the plague for the sake of my sanity, but I think it should be seen or read by everyone. It's child abuse displayed in some of the most harrowing heartbreaking scenes I have ever watched in a movie.

It's about a child called Jeremiah who was born to his 15 year old mother then fostered as a very young child by a family who loved him as every child needs and deserves to be loved. When he was 7 his mother returned to claim him and we see how fecking brutal some people are when it comes to being parents, in fact she was brutal as a human. I'm sure I will be the only person on the planet who could feel sorry for his mother but I have to admit I did. She was a mental case first and foremost and needed help.

We see Jeremiah being treated in the most awful ways by his mother and his various 'new dads'. She gave her 7 yr old drugs she gave him to her boyfriends, she gave him away again, when she had enough of him, to her absolutely cuckoo religious zealot parents. I couldn't decide if it was worse to be treated the way he was when he was with his mother, with no way of knowing who to blame or if it was worse to be treated horrendously in the name of God.

He spent three years with his grandparents in their cult like lives until his 'mother' decided she wanted him back. We see the return of the cycle of abuse, neglect and tear inducing living that the now 10 year old child has to go through.

There is no feel good factor to this movie. There is no happy ending, no forgiveness and no redemption. There are no epiphanies for any of the abusers and no relief for a child that was born to another damaged child.

I got so fecking angry while watching this and I cried my heart out for the fictional child of the movie but more for the children of the world that live the life Jeremiah did and no one does a fecking thing to save or protect them.

I hate to see children treated like they have no rights, I hate that people actually believe a child has no rights. I hated this film as I was supposed to and I recommend everyone else give themselves the chance to hate it too.

I have a copy of it here and feel like buying enough to give a copy to everyone that I know. I want everyone else to watch it. It is a movie that needs to be talked about for days with someone else. It needs to be discussed, dissected and despised.

Karma. x

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38 out of 42 people found the following comment useful :-
Very tragic, 26 huhtikuu 2006

Author: Mel J from Dundee, Scotland

'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things' is a very dark tale of abuse, lost childhood and sometimes how adults can badly let down the children who look to them for love, support and guidance. It is very depressing with no 'happily ever after' ending but I think it is a film that we should all see.

The film revolves around the sad and tragic life of young Jeremiah, a sweet and well-adjusted seven-year-old boy who has a loving home with his foster family after being abandoned as a toddler by his teenage mother. Jeremiah's happiness is snatched from him when his mother comes back and demands her son be returned to her, which social services do despite this woman not being fit to raise a plant let alone a child. From that point on, his life descends into abuse, neglect and brutality as he is dragged around from place-to-place by his drugged-out mother and her endless supply of boyfriends. Then once the novelty of raising a child wanes, she promptly dumps Jeremiah on her rigid, authoritarian family who are Christian-extremists that believe it is acceptable to beat the badness out of children. In some ways, this lifestyle is at least stable and Jeremiah does fit in only for his mother to return when he is ten and the cycle of neglect and abuse to start all over again.

The quality of the acting is excellent though. Asia Argento, who plays Jeremiah's mother Sarah as well as scripting and directing this film, gave a solid performance as this selfish, unlikeable woman who has no concept of what she is doing to her poor son. However, it is the children who out-class everyone. Playing the role of seven-year-old Jeremiah, Jimmy Bennett is brilliant in depicting this innocent little child who is frightened, alone and in pain and doesn't know what he has done to deserve this. Cole and Dylan Sprouse share the role of ten-year-old Jeremiah and through them we see a boy who is jaded by what has happened yet still retains a sense of childish innocence. Having only see these two in cheap Disney films where their acting was wooden, it was surprising to see they do have talent within them given the proper material and director.

There are many difficult and harrowing scenes in this film as we follow this child on a path that would physically and emotionally drain even the most hardened of adults. The scenes where Jeremiah was sexually abused are tastefully handled (as best as a film can 'tastefully' depict child rape, anyway) but the scenes are still very hard to watch. I know there is controversy in the story because it was supposedly based on a true-life novel only for the author J.T. LeRoy to confess it was all a lie. However, who really cares as while LeRoy may not have suffered, in reality, there are no doubt thousands of real Jeremiahs out there who have been let down by their pathetic-excuses of parents and social services. This film may not be about LeRoy but it is about these other children who are abused and worn down every day.

This film does require the viewer to have a strong stomach but it is important in highlighting the realities of child abuse and it makes you realise that children are not always better off with their biological parents. Some kids do need to be taken away and placed in a home far, far away from their real parents if they are to have any sort of happiness, comfort and stability.

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35 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
interesting film, well made., 11 toukokuu 2004

Author: the eel from London, England

I saw this film yesterday and i was genuinely impressed. I haven't read the source stories so I can't comment on it as an adaptation, but cinematically it's a success. It deals with horrific events without glamour or lust. The more harrowing scenes are not graphic, however I was still shocked. This probably has more to do with my responces to the situations rather than any bloodlust on the directors part. The three child actors who play Jeremiah all give excellent performances, showing his growth from wide-eyed innocent to sexually confused/ing teenager. I think this is Asia Argento's second film, but i felt it to be a mature work(whoever your dad is). Watching I was aware that is was quite segmented, it was also shot and edited like a music video (bleached skies and time lapse galore). The various cameos are good value. I was thoroughly moved by this film and hope it is successful.

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22 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautiful, ferocious and engrossing...., 28 joulukuu 2005

Author: revsoc_03 from Glasgow, Scotland

I'd been wanting to see this movie ever since I'd heard about it. I didn't manage to catch it at the cinema, it had a very limited release, but wow, it's worth waiting for.

Based on the book by JT Leroy, which is in turn based on his early life, and directed by and starring Asia Argento, this book charts the early years of Jeremiah, a child taken back from his foster parents by his mother, and dragged around from seedy motel to violent relationship and back again. He ends up with his fanatically religious grandparents for a while, which is little better, before being taken away by his mother again.

I was bowled over by the sheer quality of the acting, the direction, the cinematography, everything. It's a shocking, painful film, but it has a strange beauty. I was expecting it to be hard to watch, but the film just flew by. Really worth seeing if you fancy something different.

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17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Great drama!, 21 tammikuu 2006

Author: Syngeror from Finland

Although I'm not a great fan of biography/drama, this one was something else! Good writing, even if it's not a true story.

Truly a captivating film! Great story, authentic style and cinematography. Some viewers just couldn't handle the child-abuse portrayed in this movie in it's ugliest form. So be warned. This film certainly raises the topic.

Great actors, most of all the child actors were particularly good and believable (Sprouse twins) and the phenomenal Jimmy Bennett as Jeremiah at the age of 7, deserves an Oscar.

Asia Argento must have (some) talent to push this trough, and I think she did well. She seems to be like her father Dario, peculiar and a perfectionist, when it comes to directing. She's occasionally overacting her role as the monstrous, prostitute-, drug addict mother, but does it in way you start to dislike the person she's playing. The film goes on with a rage and keeps you glued to the screen till the bitter end.

"The Heart Is Deceitfull Above All Things" is a serious and pressing movie, but underneath all the ugliness lies the beauty of it.

This is the best drama, I've seen in years, and I have to say this film moved me.

Highly recommended!

On the DVD, there's interesting interviews with Asia Argento and "J.T. LeRoy" about the film.

Now, when the script is understood as fictional. Some people are bashing the movie, because there's no real Jeremy behind it. There's plenty of "Jeremys" in real life!

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16 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
It Is not the Little Boy's Fault, 16 kesäkuu 2007

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The dysfunctional twenty-three years old Sarah (Asia Argento) takes her six years old natural son Jeremiah from the home of his beloved foster parents with the support of the social service to live with her. Along the years, the boy shares her insane and lowlife style and is introduced to booze and drugs and mentally, physically and sexually abused by Sarah, her lovers and her religiously fanatic family.

"The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" has one of the most sad, depressive, cruel and unpleasant story that I have ever seen in a movie. It is realistic and dramatic, showing a North America of losers and perverts, and not the usual land of dreams of most Hollywood movies. Asia Argento is amazing directing, writing the screenplay and acting, in the role of the vulgar and cheap Sarah, honoring the blood and names of her father Dario Argento and her mother Daria Nicolodi. The boys Jimmy Bennett, Dylan and Cole Sprouse have also magnificent interpretations in the role of the suffered Jeremiah. Unfortunately there are users that confuse an unpleasant story with a bad film, writing bad reviews because they did not like the movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Maldito Coração" ("Damned Heart")

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20 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
one kid goes through hell and back, 15 heinäkuu 2005

Author: Dom Lawrance from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I'll be honest, this film is severely depressing, so if you're having a bad day you might end up on the brink of suicide after viewing this sordid tale.

Basically, there's this little innocent kid right... and then he gets the sh*t abused out of him after being returned to his crazy birth mother (from foster care). Asia Argento (the director and lead actress) must have had a hard time directing in this and playing a screwball mother at the same time - so credit to her for making it watchable. However, I must point out that there are many disturbing scenes, the worst of which is where the little kid gets ass-raped and needs his ass stitched back together, OK it doesn't show it graphically, but still... sickening. Another bad one is where the boy dresses like a girl to copy his mum and tries to satisfy a grown man (Manson no less).

Only watch this is you want to see how f*cked up life can be, oh and also to see Marilyn Manson without make up.. thats it.

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16 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than I expected, 26 huhtikuu 2005

Author: RackOutOfFocus from United States

I can't say I "liked" this film, yet I can say it was better than I expected. Actress/Director Asia Argento is both the best and worst thing about this film. As director, she presented a story that had flow and made sense, and made a couple of very good choices as to when to use surrealistic and stunt casting tricks in service of the story. She also got excellent performances out of the cast generally. Except...

as an actress, she kept taking me out of the scene. If your reaction is the same as mine, just tune her acting out and let the story unfold.

I would also say that JT Leroy, writer of the prose on which this film is based, was involved in the production. Via letter, he introduced the film at various film festivals. The claim that this is a true story, that this is "my life" that Leroy makes, tends to inoculate the film from a lot of criticism. How can anybody say "the ending wasn't much of an ending" or "the mom was really over-the-top" if the person who lived the story says the movie is "true". In other words, a movie has to have its own truth, whether the story it tells is true or not. And I guess I think this is "7" because for all it's flaws (Argento's acting, skips in time that leave characters undeveloped, and a general lack of roundness to the characters that really could have been fixed), the movie did seem to find it's own truth.

For that I credit director Argento, young actors Jimmy Bennett, Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse (who knew the Sprouse twins could act? Very well done), sharp (if stereotypical) cameo turns by Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder, & Ornella Muti (whom I took to be Lena Olin). Also props to John Robinson, who played Jeremiah's teenaged uncle -- an underused character in the film. Except I can't say that because this movie is a "true story". See? That's frustrating.

Oh, the content is strong, this is not for kids, and a LOT of adults will need to quit watching at some point. But it is overall worth the effort, if you have a strong stomach and can control your rage at the awfulness of the life depicted.

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24 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
A harrowing,brave,tortured love story not for the faint of heart..., 25 lokakuu 2004

Author: Lilly-21 from isle of mann

...or those with a deficit in empathy, for this film asks the viewer for an open, compassionate, feeling heart. The truth of the matter is, the culture that is revealed to

you in this movie is a reality and nightmare for those entrenched in it. Ms. Argento makes a masterpiece that takes no sides; instead she boldly lays forth a landscape of love, abuse, and how one will do just about anything to feel needed and worthwhile, even if that means going back again and again to the hand that hurts you and abandons you. If you don't get this film, it is either simply not for you, or perhaps you have not read the addictive literary achievements of J.T. LeRoy. If the latter is true, go now to you local bookstore and buy any of his courageous works; they will literary bring you to your knees...or at least they did to me, gripping me with raw, honest ferocity. If you just didn't get the film and the challenging material it presents, i encourage you to see it again; honestly, it just keeps getting better and better. Let it enter you...and feel, for once, your self, your discomfort, whatever emerges. Outstanding performances of an all-star cast, this is sure to be a cult film that, once on video, you will want to own.

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24 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
High praise for the performances., 22 kesäkuu 2004

Author: johnnyg83

But the strong performances all around and the great settings really made an impression on me. I thought the editing was exceptionally done. One thing that did bother me was the lighting there was almost a pallor over the film, like it was from the 1970s. Was that the projector or did everyone else notice that? I would recommend this film. I enjoyed the cameos by Peter Fonda, Marilyn Manson and Winona Ryder. The real reason I went to see this is because I've always loved Leroy's short stories and this movie was a somewhat faithful blending of his literary vision and his overall message to his readers. Life is complicated and the choices we make aren't guaranteed to get us anything.

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