Jesus' Son

Its been a long time since Crush, but New Zealander Maclean's first US film is a frisky adaptation of a collection of short stories by Denis Johnson, recounting the misadventures of the drug-addled Fuck Head (FH for short) in the Midwest in the early '70s. The freewheeling tone (Maclean modifies her style between episodes) somewhat resembles Drugstore Cowboy. A sequence involving a knife and an eyeball is the funniest thing I've seen all year. The redemptive thrust of the second half is obviously a bit harder to swallow, but see the film for Billy Crudup's wonderful central performance, which holds everything together and justifies all the buzz which has gathered around him.