Jesus' Son

REVIEW
In the early '70s, people saw God everywhere, and often thought they saw the god within. Jesus' Son has a random and disjointed nature, fitting since it's based on a collection of short stories (by Denis Johnson), fitting since that's much like life. As a young man known only as Fuckhead, Crudup is sweetly spacey as he wanders through his life, bouncing off a collection of demons and oddballs, junkies and miscreants. The story -- of a druggie turned small-time thief and of his redemption -- folds over itself, non-linear and episodic, a confluence of happenstance testifying that there's no salvation without sin, no redemption without wretchedness. FH follows a path of pain and loss to his own epiphanies and allows the viewer to experience a few of our own. Maclean's direction is fluid and lyrical, and the ensemble cast work well together to create a heightened alternate reality and deliver a bemused satisfaction.