The story of this literary hoax is a confusing one but the movie is a Dummy’s Guide to JT LeRoy and lays out the pieces in a way that begins to make sense. As it holds up a mirror to people pretending to be who they are not it is hard to decide if any of them experience real pain. There is an interesting commentary on the thrill of performance but at the expense of emotional punch. It is, however, a passable merry go round of odd characters and circumstances that feels timely with the recent opaque events and social media storm around Jussie Smollett.
The screenplay, by Justin Kelly and Savannah Koop is based on Savannah’s book “How I Became JT LeRoy”.
Savannah (Kristen Stewart) leaves home to stay with her musician brother and encounters his girlfriend and band mate Laura Albert (played confusingly by another Laura, Laura Dern). Savannah’s androgynous looks immediately spark an opportunity for Laura. Laura is secretly a New York Times best-selling author having penned the story of Sarah, the transgender child of a prostitute. Laura Albert wrote the story under the name of a fictional writer she created called JT LeRoy.
The fascination people feel for LeRoy’s work is that it is supposed have a large autobiographical element. As LeRoy is not real Laura has been unable to capitalize on all of the money-making opportunities that a physical LeRoy would have. Laura persuades Savannah to start playing LeRoy for interviews, photo shoots, and publics events. It throws Savanah into a glamorous world of stars, celebrities and filmmakers. Savannah starts to have real feelings for the people she meets even though they are not meeting the real her. Inevitably holes start to emerge in the lies and the secret is revealed in a messy and public way. The whole bizarre experience then becomes the basis for Savannah to write her own book about it.
Savannah Koop is reluctant and self-effacing but gets caught up by the appealing creativity of playing a character in public. She is not motivated by greed but a sense of ownership of the persona of JT LeRoy that grows over time. The hiding of her light is ironically suitable for Kristen’s Stewart withdrawn and low key acting.
Laura Albert, not only a writer, but also a phone sex worker and a musician is played with gusto by Dern. Dern is the whirring hamster wheel at the heart of the story. Full of creative passion, riven by insecurity, the character mows ahead with the hoax regardless of consequences. Dern guzzles down the role with obvious enjoyment. Watching a good actress playing this hammy and melodramatic character is contagiously fun. As is the jaunty score that provides a comic side eye to the main action.
The movie never allows you to know who to believe. There is a notional revelation towards the end about Laura Albert’s motivation. It was not an attempt to dupe the public but the expression of an insecure and pained writer who felt no one would care about her pain unless it was written in a more sympathetic origin story. For her ‘Sometimes a lie is more truth than the truth”. But a theme of the movie is that everyone is trying to deal with the cards that they are dealt. Don’t bet too much on what could be just another bluff.
