Product Description

Seven-year-old Jeremiah lived a calm, comfortable life in the care of a loving foster home until the day his young mother Sarah (Argento) came to take him against his will into her reckless life of turmoil and depravity, between desolate truck-stops, flea bag motels, strip joints, drug den and deadbeat surrogate dads until he finds himself in the custody of his ultra-religious grandparents. Having adapted to his new life as a Christian fundamentalist, Sarah returns to claim her son. Bound by a love only a mother and son could have for each other, Sarah pulls Jeremiah further and further into her dementia. When Sarah is finally and wholly consumed by drugs, prostitution and violence, Jeremiah is forced into a desperate struggle to survive the madness of his surroundings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17698 in DVD
• Brand: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP DISTRIBUTION
• Released on: 2006-06-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .35 pounds
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
Asia Argento's adaptation of JT Leroy's short story collection, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, still has the heartbreaking urgency of a tale about child abuse, regardless of Leroy's proven fraudulent identity. Weaving plots together from Leroy's two books, Sarah, and The Heart Is Deceitful, Argento relays the history of orphaned Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett/Cole Sprouse), whose mother Sarah (Asia Argento) abandons him as a baby to work as a truck-stop lot lizard for her methamphetamine habit. Sarah tears Jeremiah away from a stable foster home to pathetically attempt mothering her seven-year old son. Jeremiah instantly grows up in strip clubs, drug dealers' homes, big rigs, and in the hot rod that he and his mother call home. His sadomasochistic sexual psychology also develops prematurely, informed by men who rape and beat him, and a mother whose work as a hooker requires Jeremiah's dressing up as a girl to pass as her younger sister. Enter a born again, psychotically zealous Grandfather (Peter Fonda) who takes temporary custody of Jeremiah, and the viewer begins to understand Sarah's severe rebelliousness, sensing that the punk, 23-year old prostitute may be a better parent for Jeremiah, simply because she loves him. Shot by Eric Alan Edwards (Kids, My Own Private Idaho), and with a soundtrack including Sonic Youth, Subhumans, Billy Corgan, and Hasil Adkins, the film has a raunchy, Southern appeal similar to that of Leroy's books. Cameos appearances by Winona Ryder and Marilyn Manson add rock star power. Argento keeps it sexy, as this is as much a story of the mother-child bond as it is about the malformation of a boy's sexual identity. True or not, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things is a sincere yet stylized rendition of a terribly sad story. --Trinie Dalton

From The New Yorker
Asia Argento directed, and stars in, this adaptation of J. T. LeRoy's book of the same name. The seven-year-old hero, Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett), has been brought from a loving foster home to the half-empty apartment of his mother, Sarah (Argento), who takes drugs and turns tricks for a living. The rest of the film is a dutiful course in degradation, complete with a roster of villains as well established as those of any soap opera. As an actress, Argento has not advanced to a significant degree since her ballsy turn opposite Vin Diesel in "XXX." As a director, she has a tendency to play leapfrog with the narrative at the exact moment when it threatens to hold our interest. This is a shame, because when Argento does stop to consider the changes that humans slowly wreak on one another, as opposed to the sudden blows that they inflict, she can reach beyond the gross to a damaged sadness that many filmmakers would prefer not to ponder.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
I Thought It Was Very Well Thought Of, And Very Well Made, Although Clips Where Cut, Which I Was Quite Frustrated.
The Kids Acting in the movie was Excelently well Performed And The Movie Touched Me, because I Went Though Almost The Same Ordeal.
My Wife and I Cried,

Great Actors, Horrible Film
Well, if there is one positive thing to mention about this movie, it's that there are some great actors here and they do a good job with what they are provided. The problem is that the story is boring and it goes nowhere. I understand that some great movies can be about ugly topics, but to become great in this genre, they need to excel. This movie was just one scene after the next of bad things happening, with no real emotion about it all and no point or thought provoked by it. Very disappointing.

Devastatingly beautiful if somewhat distressing
This DVD is distressing in an educational sort of way.....it gives one pause to consider the lives that some vulnerable young people are forced to lead and how vulnerable their parents can also be in these circumstances...the life of the parent inevitably impacts on the life of the child and yet to see this young boy adapt to changing circumstances is not only a cause for concern, but hope, too!