Review: JT LeRoy

Androgynous male author J.T. LeRoy earned some notoriety and popularity for a few semi-autobiographical novels and short stories from the late 90s onwards. However, there was no real J.T. Le Roy. Instead the character of J.T. LeRoy was the brainchild of Laura Albert (played by Laura Dern) a musician/author who wrote J.T.’s words and then got stuck when people started clamouring to meet the face behind the words. For a while, Albert was able to affect a mumbly Southern drawl for some phone interviews with the supposedly ultra-shy LeRoy. However, eventually Albert hired the sister of her musician boyfriend Geoffrey Knoop (Jim Sturgess) to put a face/image to the words. Here we get a telling of that story from the point of view of Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart), the rather androgynous visage of J.T. LeRoy. Diane Kruger plays a bisexual filmmaker-actress who is supposedly loosely based on Asia Argento, while Courtney Love turns up playing another character so that the film can play ‘Celebrity Skin’ over the end credits, I guess.

 

A perfectly cast Kristen Stewart can’t disguise (pun intended) the fact that this 2019 Justin Kelly (“King Cobra” with Christian Slater, James Franco, and Molly Ringwald) true story is focussed on the least interesting person in the story. Being that Kelly co-writes the script with the real-life Savannah Knoop from the latter’s memoir, it’s probably no surprise that the film is more interested in Knoop’s character perhaps. For me though, Laura Albert is the most fascinating character, and the heart and soul of J.T. LeRoy, whilst Knoop merely gave LeRoy a face. The film never gets inside Albert’s head, we don’t ever really find out why the character and ruse were invented in the first place. Thus, you’re much better off watching a documentary on the subject. I suggest the one hour episode of “Vanity Fair Investigates”, which is really interesting stuff and gives Laura Albert far more emphasis than Savannah Knoop.

 

Having said all of that, Kristen Stewart is far more convincingly cast as Knoop than the far too old Laura Dern is as Albert, a role that probably should’ve gone to Jessica Chastain or Judy Greer. Dern will be 55 in February 2022 and Albert is only 56 as of today’s date, the story taking place in the early 2000s. The ages don’t quite add up and the visual is even less convincing. Dern’s performance is a touch thin to be honest (Laura Albert is much weirder and more avant-garde/edgy than Dern plays her), and so is the film itself because despite Stewart’s fine efforts there’s just not much there with Knoop as a character. There’s even less here to the character of musician Geoffrey Knoop, Savannah’s brother and Laura’s boyfriend. Jim Sturgess is pretty good in the part, but he gets nothing of interest to do. I think scenes of Geoffrey and Laura’s musical endeavours would’ve added something to the film and their characters. There’s a terrific supporting performance by a sexy Diane Kruger however, even though her knowledge/ignorance of J.T.’s identity is murkily handled in the script. The film remains watchable, but that’s because even in lesser form it’s still an interesting story.

 

It’s one of the craziest stories of its type that I’ve come across, but the filmmakers fail to focus on the most interesting and frankly villainous character of Laura Albert. So it ends up a bit unsatisfying. Just watch a documentary on the subject, it’ll be far more interesting and substantial than this rather superficial film version. For Kristen Stewart completists only. She’s actually damn good here in perhaps the role she was born to play. The film is just OK at best.

 

Rating: C+