JT Leroy's short stories, chronicling his troubled childhood spent travelling across the Southern states of America with a drug-addled prostitute mother, are brought to the screen as faithfully as possible by Asia Argento, daughter of Italian horror director Dario Argento.
The result is as horrific as anything Dario has ever done, but almost too remorseless for its own good.
Asia plays the prostitute as a wicked and selfish woman, held in temporary thrall to a series of loutish men. The boy, Jeremiah, is raped by one jilted
husband and later incarcerated with a fundamentalist family whose idea of driving away his evil is pretty evil itself.
The fragmented narrative tells of a young life cruelly driven towards introspection and fantasy. Stylish and well-acted, but a film you can admire rather than like.
