- Release:
15 juni 2015 - Regie:
James Franco (127 Hours, This Is the End, Veronica Mars)
- Cast:
Fallon Goodson (L!fe Happens)
Scott Haze (Venom, Jurassic World Dominion, Sound of Freedom)
Tim Blake Nelson (Lincoln, The Incredible Hulk, The Astronaut Farmer, O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
James Franco (127 Hours, This Is the End, Veronica Mars)
- Genre:
Drama
Thriller
- Jaar: 2013
- A Première TV Distribution Release
Collectie: 28 van 133
Child of God
SYNOPSIS
Sevier County, een district in de uitlopers van de Appalachen in Tennessee, in de jaren '60. Lester Ballard is een gewelddadige, bizarre jongeman met wie het, na het verlies van zijn ouders, van kwaad naar erger gaat. Zonder familie, arm en ontheemd, wordt de sociopaat verstoten door de maatschappij en isoleert hij zichzelf in de wildernis, waar hij langzaam wegzinkt in een dierlijk bestaan. Helemaal van God los, geeft Ballard zich over aan seksuele perversiteiten en gruwelijke wraakoefeningen op de gemeenschap die hem uitbande...
Regisseur James Franco – die zelf ook een rol vertolkt – maakt van het onverfilmbaar gewaande boek van Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) een provocatieve, schokkende parabel die veel gelijkenissen vertoont met het leven en de gruweldaden van seriemoordenaar Ed Gein. De verbluffende vertolking van Scott Haze (As I Lay Dying) werd door de pers bejubeld als "een openbaring" en "macaber, maar memorabel".
REVIEWS
- Variety.com: A galvanizing portrait of social and sexual deviance.
- FilmThreat.com: Profoundly intense .. [an] incredible and fierce performance.
- TheGuardian.com: Multi-hyphenate renaissance man James Franco has finally delivered the goods with this great, grisly Cormac McCarthy adaptation. Child of God is a shocking tale of backwoods lunacy and one man's descent into hell.
- HollywoodReporter.com: A pitch-dark hillbilly fever dream... A character study of a figure said to be partly inspired by Wisconsin murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein (also an influence on the killers in Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the film succeeds on its own terms. That is in large part down to Haze's unstinting commitment to the role.
- Film-forward.com: In a character actor/star making performance, Scott Haze leads a ferocious cast. Macabre but memorable.
- Filmleaf.net: A well-made film, dominated by a once-in-a-lifetime, balls-out performance by Scott Haze as Lester Ballard, the crazed outcast, the titular, protagonist "child of God" (testing the range of that concept) who in the course of the story becomes a cave-dweller, murderer, and necrophiliac.
- Cine-vue.com: Franco (through the excellent Haze) has created a dark portrait of an outcast, lacing it with his own bleak poetry and black humour. 4 out of 5 stars.
- Rollingstone.com: The film's protagonist is Lester Ballard, played by Scott Haze in a performance that can be described for starters as phenomenal. This is ambitious, challenging filmmaking, elevated by Franco's compassion and Haze's revelatory acting. OK, the film trips up on its attempt to lace tragedy with gallows humor. But Franco is out there trying something, balancing literature and cinema in a tightrope act that is never less than exciting to watch.
AWARDS
- Hamptons International Film Festival 2013: Breakthrough Performer - Scott Haze
- Venice Film Festival 2013: Nominated for Golden Lion.