It’s become custom to sneer at anything actor/director/writer James Franco does because he seems obsessed with doing it all (he’s also a performance artist/philosopher/phd student extraordinaire/queer theorist/satirist among others). His bold performances and opinions tend to be divisive because they remind us that we are living in times where younger artists can attempt to make statements that were usually reserved for legends. How dare he play Allen Ginsberg? How dare he adapt a Faulkner novel? How dare he think he can make a movie out of lost footage of “Cruising”?
“Child of God” seems to be custom made for his detractors; the film is an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel (written and directed by Franco) that depicts a man’s descent into anarchy, social exile and necrophilia. The man in question is Lester Ballard (Scott Haze) a young man who has been deprived of everything he once had. When we first meet him, he’s attempting to stop his family’s property from being auctioned but is speedily beaten by townsmen who then send him away. Living by himself in the woods, Lester turns into the go-to scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in town, a woman falsely accuses him of rape, leading a hopeless sheriff (played by the great Tim Blake Nelson) to ask Lester to give them clues about what kind of crime he’ll commit next.
It would be easy to say that Lester is forced into a life in darkness by the people who have rejected him all his life, but Franco doesn’t take the easy route. He turns Lester into a wild animal in whom we can often see glimpses of ourselves. Through his clever direction and dark sense of humor, he turns Lester into a monster, only to then turn the mirror on us. The film is filled with quirky touches like chapter titles, title cards, various narrators, handheld camera and a hipster-approved score that seem obtrusive at first, but then blend effortlessly into a tale that has more in common with campfire legends than high-literature. See beyond the Franco-isms and find a film that’s both funny and utterly terrifying.
Particular praise should be given to Haze, who Franco acknowledged was cast because he’s an unknown (Sam Rockwell and Michael Shannon were his other choices). He delivers a performance that’s sure to be talked about for ages. Watching him embody Lester without an inkling of self-consciousness sometimes achieves documentary levels; how can a man look so at ease doing the things Lester does in front of a camera? Whether he’s cleaning himself with leaves, trying to seduce a corpse or letting stuffed animals break his heart, he never makes us think he’s someone other than Lester. The film’s most shocking achievement might be that it forces us to find the humanity in someone who others have demonized beyond repair.
"Child of God" was an official selection of the 51st New York Film Festival.
