Heaven Knows What

MOVIE #1,273 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 12.11.23 P̳a̳r̳t̳ ̳o̳f̳ ̳T̳H̳E̳ ̳S̳A̳F̳D̳I̳E̳ ̳B̳R̳O̳T̳H̳E̳R̳S̳ ̳D̳i̳r̳e̳c̳t̳o̳r̳ ̳F̳o̳c̳u̳s̳ The focus here is naturally difficult but this is somewhat tedious regardless of the subject matter. It isn’t fun or funny like Daddy Longlegs because duh of course it's not: it’s a heroin addiction movie, it couldn't be and isn't supposed to be. This makes me think that it’s not so much that Heaven Knows What itself is a difficult picture, but that the arena it plays in (drugs and their devastation) is an incredibly tricky one to craft a film that isn’t one long, incredibly downer note. The most interesting element here is its autobiographical nature as the Safdies tasked lead performer Arielle Holmes to write a memoir based on her life which resulted in the unpublished work (“Mad Love in New York City”) that’s credited as the source material (the book actually came out for real earlier this year).

This blending of reality and art is fascinating. I think it’s exploitative by design and I don’t really view it as a negative worth harping on. Holmes acted in a couple other things and apparently has dealt with struggles in the time since this came out. It’s impossible to say whether or not the experience wasn’t a net positive. One constant in the Safdies’ work has been their pursuit of injecting realism into the fictional narrative. They haven’t explored it in an autobiographical sense like this before or since, but they are constantly featuring non-actor NYC people in prominent scenes. These performances can be hilarious or jarring and sometimes both things at once. But they always make the point of juxtaposing them with ‘real’ actors, like Robert Pattinson or Adam Sandler, or even Caleb Landry Jones here. But Holmes is the rare case where the amateur is the star and she more than holds her own.

I definitely wanted to like this more than I did. I like a good slow burn but ultimately the film is aimless in a way that isn’t too interesting. Painstaking efforts are taken to withhold judgment, almost to a fault. I’m not looking for hefty moralization or after-school special level schlock, by any means, and I don’t think the movie glorifies this lifestyle in any way. But in its dedication to fly-on-the-wall realism it ends up feeling blank.

Still, it’s an interesting document as a stepping stone, especially having seen the wonderful work that follows (Good Time and Uncut Gems). I’ll be closing out this Director Focus on the bros by examining their short film work at the end of the month. Stay tuned.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,272 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,274 ⫸

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Heaven Knows What is a 2014 psychological drama film directed by Ben and Joshua Safdie and written by Ronald Bronstein and Joshua Safdie. The film stars Arielle Holmes, Buddy Duress, Ron Braunstein, Eleonore Hendricks, Caleb Landry Jones and Yuri Pleskun. The film was released on May 29, 2015, by RADiUS. It is based on Mad Love in New York City, Holmes' unpublished memoir of her life as a homeless heroin addict living on the streets of New York City, where she was discovered by director Josh Safdie, who encouraged her to write the memoir. It was released on August 29, 2014.