The Heart is Deceitful...Above All Things

As tough-minded and grown-up a film about child abuse as Gregg Araki’s admittedly superior ‘Mysterious Skin’ (also in the fest), Argento’s second feature chronicles the physical and sexual abuse and neglect endured by a young boy saddled with a hopeless, strung-out mother. Hard to watch but gorgeously photographed, this adaptation of novelist JT Leroy’s autobiographical Southern Gothic sometimes reaches ‘Ratcatcher’-like heights in envisioning child’s-eye dreams and nightmares. Assembling a vivid gallery of cameos – Peter Fonda as a Bible-belt-wielding Jesus freak, Winona Ryder as a child psychologist – Argento also contributes a note-perfect performance as the miserable, monstrous, and – in her own sick way – loving mother.