Hesher

Hesher, the first feature film from writer/director Spencer Susser, succeeds mainly due to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's gonzo performance as the Metallica-loving title character. Young T.J. (Devin Brochu) is about to explode with rage over the death of his mother; his dad, Paul (a startlingly quirk-free Rainn Wilson), has transformed from a clean-shaven father into a heavily medicated shadow of himself. The arrival of Hesher (Gordon-Levitt), a greasy-haired, tattooed anarchist with an amusing habit of speaking in metaphors, is the Molotov cocktail that shatters their glassy-eyed grief and brings them back to the world of the living. Gordon-Levitt steals every scene he's in, delivering Hesher's foul-mouthed monologues with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that signals his crusty exterior may be a defense against some unnamed past tragedy. Susser admirably avoids any backstory or rationalization for T.J. and Hesher's antagonistic relationship, which soon expands to include Nicole (an underutilized Natalie Portman), an insecure supermarket cashier, and T.J.'s rueful grandmother Madeleine (Piper Laurie). Though it occasionally drags, mainly in scenes of T.J.'s endless torment at the hands of a fellow classmate, Hesher, with its arson-fueled belief that the best things in life are right in front of us, is cathartic and surprisingly heartfelt.