- courtesy of Entertainment One
The Fourth of July holiday is traditionally a slow week for DVD releases. Studios and distributors assume everyone is out grilling or watching fireworks, and not interested in home videos.
I’m what you call an indoorsy person, though, and so have dutifully gone through this week’s slim pickings. JESUS HENRY CHRIST is an indie comedy in the Little Miss Sunshine vein, featuring eccentric family relations, flamboyantly dark humor and precocious little kids.
It’s quirk overkill, frankly, and painfully self-conscious. But if you can get past all the conspicuous indie-ness, you’ll find a sweet minor-key comedy with some fine performances.
It goes like this: Ten-year-old Henry Herman (Jason Spevack, your kids will know him as Nick Jr.’s Dino Dan) is a child genius. He has a memory which he describes as even better than photographic. He can replay events in his mind like high-definition video.
Henry’s mom, the ardently feminist Patricia (Toni Collette), has raised Henry by herself, after a visit to the sperm bank 10 years ago. Patricia’s no-account father Stanley (Frank Moore, in the Alan Arkin role) bankrolled that trip to the clinic, as a way to make up for Patricia’s lousy childhood. Via flashback, we learn that three of Patricia’s brothers died tragically, one fled to Canada, and her mom died in a freak birthday cake accident. (It’s that kind of movie.)
