With her directorial follow-up to Scarlet Diva, Asia Argento proves herself no fluke and an important counterculture filmmaker. Adapted from the semiautobiographical novel by JT LeRoy, who turned out to be the fictional creation of his ostensible housemate Laura Albert, it's the tale of young Jeremiah (initially played by Jimmy Bennett, then Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse), a boy reclaimed from loving foster parents by his irresponsible birth mother Sarah (Argento).
She's like a nightmare Courtney Love, whoring herself out to the nearest available boyfriend-pimp and using plenty of drugs, some of which she shares with Jeremiah. Argento seems to have been in on the JT LeRoy scam, but it doesn't much matter--she's captured the underbelly of trucker culture quite nicely, supplemented with a Sonic Youth score and cameos by the likes of Michael Pitt, Winona Ryder, Jeremy Sisto and Marilyn Manson, who appears surprisingly sans makeup and looking relatively human.