Based on her own memoir, the true story of a young woman (Kristen Stewart) who fooled the world portraying fake literary persona JT LeRoy. Co-stars Laura Dern.
JT LeRoy caused a stir in the 1990s, a gifted teen author who won praise for his semi-autobiographical accounts of emotional and sexual abuse and drug use. But LeRoy was actually the creation of Laura Albert (Dern), a woman in her mid-30s who needed someone who could pass for the teenage boy in public. Enter her sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop (Stewart), who spent years masquerading as Albert's creation in front of an unaware world.
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While technically a supporting character, Dern often steals the show, relishing the opportunity to shift between a trio of personalities to darkly comic effect. That's appropriate in a movie all about the perils of seeking attention.
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For a movie about what's going on under the elaborately staged surface, it's pretty much all surface, right down to its shallow observations about gender fluidity, queer identity and the creative freedom of the alternate persona.
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Justin Kelly's low key directing choices allow the two very fine central performances to take centre stage.
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But where Dern and Stewart kick-start something worth exploring, the movie around them is pleased spectator instead of engaged participant.
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It's a very forthright performance from Dern, but Stewart is simply too opaque and subdued in the role of Knoop.
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JT LeRoy is a decent telling of a fascinating, resonant true story. If it never really fulfils its promise, it's worth it to see two major talents - Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern - in full flow.
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The lifeless narrative rhythm, which quickly succumbs to a deadly causal trap (and then, and then, and then), doesn't help either.
Full reviewJeremiah Terminator LeRoy is available to stream in Australia now on Google Play and Apple TV and Foxtel and Binge and SBS On Demand and Ritz at Home.
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