What can we say about The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things? Well, Cole and Dylan Sprouse play Jeremiah, a boy who is taken from his foster parents to live with his drug-addicted, prostitute mother Sarah and along the way has sex with Marilyn Manson, gets raped and molested several times, and at one point becomes a Christian! A very squicky film to say the least.
Tropes seen:
- Abusive Parents: Sarah, although she would have won a mother of the year award compared to the book.
- Sarah's parents were also abusive to her.
- An Aesop: Some foster parents are more caring than biological ones.
- Based on a Great Big Lie: The film is based on an autobiographical novel by teenaged author JT LeRoy. Except that LeRoy turned out to be thirtysomething female Laura Albert.
- The Cameo:
- Winona Ryder plays an extremely incompetent child psychiatrist.
- Peter Fonda plays Jeremiah's Christian fundamentalist grandfather.
- Dragged into Drag: Played for Drama when Sarah forces Jeremiah to cross-dress so he can be her "little sister".
- Literary Allusion Title: Comes from the Book of Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV):"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"
- Mood Whiplash: Sarah. One minute she loves Jeremiah, the next she hates him.
- Nightmare Sequence: Several, usually featuring
massive, clawing red birds. - Teen Pregnancy: It's implied that Jeremiah was born when Sarah was 16/17. She confirms that she's 23 at the beginning of the film while picking Jeremiah up.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Jeremiah drinks alcohol at multiple points in the movie and even tries to seduce one of Sarah's boyfriends.
