The mind-boggling tale of a female author whose greatest creation was a flesh-and-blood alter ego, an avatar so sexy, talented and (apparently) authentic that American writers, rockstars and film-makers lionised “him” for over six years.
The prosaically monikered Laura Albert created J T Leroy some time in the late Nineties. She knew she had a way with words but didn’t want to write in her own voice. Brooklyn-born, Jewish, married with a small child and (as far as she was concerned) hideously fat, Albert felt more loveable, sexy and creative when pretending to be a blonde, blueeyed boy.
Gushing to therapists, publishers and, later, celebrities (in conversations which she bizarrely but rather presciently taped), Albert adopted the persona of a gender-fluid teen from West Virginia, infected by Aids and warped by years of sexual abuse. When her listeners wanted to meet “J T”, Albert convinced her sister-in-law, Savannah, to dress up and play the part. Imagine a girlish version of River Phoenix (or a tomboyish version of British journalist Miranda Sawyer).
Savannah had the looks. Albert had the brains. Together they created quite the pretty-gritty package. Director Jeff Feuerzeig lets Albert (and the tapes) do most of the talking. Our anti-heroine is hypnotic, a speedy hybrid of Andy Warhol, Patricia Highsmith and — last but not least — Brass Eye’s Chris Morris.
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Whether by accident or design Albert exploited the sloppy eagerness of the famous to jump on bandwagons. “Edgy” stars such as Bono, Winona Ryder and Asia Argento (who turned one of J T Leroy’s novels into a film) come out of this looking especially gullible and craven. Tom Waits seems pretty pompous, too. Ironically, the coke-guzzling Courtney Love, uninterested in the concept of dignity, emerges with hers intact.
We only hear once from Savannah. You long to know how the ruse impacted on her sanity. You feel a sneaking desire, too, to get a peak at Albert’s son Thor. But it’s probably right that Feuerzeig keeps his distance. Albert, clearly a self-promoter and the dictionary definition of an unreliable narrator, nevertheless avoids turning her life into a soap opera and so does the film. Bleakly illuminating, this is a story about stories. End of.
Cert 15, 111 mins
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