Directed by Justin Kelly
Written by Justin Kelly and Savannah Knoop
Starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, and Diane Kruger
Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes
MPAA rating: R

Is it possible to find yourself, truly come into your own, while pretending to be someone else? Sure. People do it all the time. I realized the person I was and needed to be while fully inhabiting the body of a straight married woman who lived in a really nice house with a really awesome husband and two (sometimes) sweet cats. I needed to live in that world to get to the place I am today (out, in a relationship with a really amazing woman, living in a cute yet rundown apartment with one {sometimes} sweet cat.) I don’t regret the shoes I had to walk in to get to where I am today. I’m forever grateful.

While totally different in experience, Savannah Knoop might understand what I’m saying. For six years, Knoop inhabited the public persona of literary wunderkind Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy, the “author” of semi-autobiographical tales of sexual abuse and turning tricks amidst the backdrop of West Virginia truck stops. LeRoy’s novels, Sarah (1999), The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (1999), and Harold’s End (2005) were in fact written by Knoop’s sort-of sister-in-law, Laura Albert. During those six years, Knoop journeyed along a path to their own self-acceptance and understanding, as they wrote in 2008’s Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy. The window to the LeRoy story is told here through Knoop’s eyes, with only glimpses at the woman behind the author: a woman dealing with the singed remnants of a chaotic childhood, struggling with her own gender identity and past traumas in the only way she could: writing, but not as herself. Albert, in exorcising her demons, found a way to get them out – she talks about having found JT as if JT were a real person she just stumbled upon on the street. To her, to some extent, he was indeed real.

Perhaps Albert didn’t expect the immense adoration she received from the hip lit world and cool celebs: Dennis Cooper, Gus Van Sant, Courtney Love, Billy Corgan, Tom Waits…even freaking Bono came a courtin’. And this is where I think the trouble really started. Albert wanted to figure out how to ride the wave. She’d been (secretly) recording her phone conversations with interviewers, celebrities, authors she respected like Cooper – but she hit a ceiling and decided it wasn’t enough. So she asked Knoop, her then-boyfriend Geoff’s half-sister, to play the part in public. Albert portrayed the role of Speedie, a British handler/manager/publicist who escorted JT everywhere and watched her like a hawk. And this is where things get truly weird? Cause homegirl had her bf’s half-sister out in public in really bad wigs and sunglasses? And like, it was kinda obvi to folks that something wasn’t quite right about all this? Like we’re talking the kind of wigs you’d get at one of them Halloween Adventure stores they have in the mall or in a shopping center after a Ross goes out of business? And Speedie like annoyed the fuck outta some folks? And there were inconsistencies upon inconsistencies in her story because once you start telling one lie, more and more lies start to pile on top of that first one and before you know it you’re in so deep you can’t remember all your untruths? So…yeah…it wasn’t long before some very smart journalists very smartly figured it all out.

I haven’t read any JT LeRoy novels – mostly because the subject matter seems way too incredibly sad for me to handle. So I’ve stayed away from the books and only paid minor attention to the story as it unfolded.

JT LeRoy the movie, appears to pick up a bit where documentaries (Author: The JT LeRoy Story, The Cult of JT LeRoy) on the subject left off, in focusing on Knoop’s side of the story. The film’s main theme, scored by Tim Kvasnosky, perfectly ushers us into the curious mystery unfolding before us. The film assumes that viewers know the story front and back, left and right, a fact I found a little troubling considering I only have a casual understanding of the story. This doesn’t mean the uninitiated won’t be able to follow - it’s just a slightly jarring viewing experience from the jump, but after awhile the story eases into itself. Just when things started to get really interesting for me ( a montage where Knoop is really diving into her LeRoy role via parties and photo shoots) ended up falling a little flat. While Knoop’s perspective is indeed eye-opening, I felt the story needed more Albert. Without understanding the true motivations of the mastermind, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Knoop’s engagement in it, let alone the entire situation. There are helpful snippets of dialogue that hint at Albert’s tumultuous internal forces at play: in a moment of reflection and camaraderie, Albert confesses to Knoop that in writing as LeRoy, creating and living as LeRoy “it felt so good not to be in this body.” And through both of their explorations into the mad world of celebrity, they at once find themselves and get incredibly, crazily caught up.

Kristen Stewart is really killin it lately. We can joke all we want about her earlier performances in the Twilight movies and silly flicks like Catch That Kid, or as Joan Jett in The Runaways (don’t care what you say about the latter movie though, I love it), but I feel the need to list all the films I’ve truly admired her in: Clouds of Sils Maria, Still Alice, Equals, Certain Women, Café Society, Personal Shopper, and now JT LeRoy. She is so incredibly vulnerable in this film, so careful to embody Knoop’s character with sensitivity and thoughtfulness, highlighting non-binary gender identities in such a timely, compassionate way. Laura Dern is solid as LeRoy’s almighty creator, and when is Laura Dern not great in something? Diane Kruger as shady Euro director/actress/femme fatale Eva (based on a composite of Asia Argento) is fascinating to watch, up until she breaks Knoop’s, I mean LeRoy’s, heart. For those well-acquainted with the LeRoy hoax, JT LeRoy may add to the overall mystique of the story when reviewed alongside the docs and books on the subject. Taken on its own, it leaves the viewer wanting more depth and nuance to bring things full circle. As Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” closes out the film, and we hear Courtney Love sing “Oh make me over…” we’re left with mostly a surface message to deconstruct.