Jesus Henry Christ

Lou Lumenick

Blog: Movies

MOVIE REVIEW

JESUS HENRY CHRIST
Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violent images, profanity). At Cinema Village, 12th Street and University Place.

An excellent cast works overtime in this aggressively quirky Canadian comedy in the “Little Miss Sunshine” vein, which at least improves on writer-director Dennis Lee’s unfortunate debut feature, “Fireflies in the Garden.”

Cast for the umpteenth time as a single mom, Toni Collette plays an ardent feminist with a tragic family history, including her mother’s immolation during a birthday celebration. She refuses to tell her increasingly curious 12-year-old son Henry (Jason Spevack), who has a photographic memory, the identity of his father.

Then Henry’s eccentric grandpa (Frank Moore) reveals that Henry was procreated from sperm donated by a divorced college professor (Michael Sheen) — who has just published a book on the experimental upbringing of his understandably angry daughter (Samantha Weinstein) titled “Born Gay or Made That Way?”

It’s hard to believe in the overly complicated story of “Jesus Henry Christ,” in which Jason Spevack (right) searches for his dad with help from his eccentric grandpa (Frank Moore).

After Henry publicly kisses his half-sibling to squelch classmates’ speculation about her sexuality, they all go about becoming one great big happy dysfunctional family. Even for a surreal black comedy, “Jesus Henry Christ” requires massive suspension of disbelief.