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Natalie Portman with glasses, Joseph Gordon Levitt resembling a mix between Lemmy and Cliff Burton, a poster in Metallica style: it's impossible to remain indifferent to this movie.
"Hesher was here" is the first feature film by Spencer Susser, and also the first film in which the beautiful Portman serves as a producer. Susser's film brings to stage the story of TJ and Hesher (Joseph Gordon Levitt): two characters who meet almost by chance and will become friends, directly and indirectly, to one another. TJ is a kid who has just lost his mother in a car accident and his father is devastated by grief and medication: Hesher enters their lives in an entirely unexpected way, bringing further problems, but also that hint of distraction and relief necessary in a difficult moment.
A product that relies solely on the character of Hesher and to a lesser extent on Portman's character: the film itself is not much, with twists that have already been used hundreds of times and even in a better way (see the subplot of the bully torturing our young protagonist). But Gordon Levitt's Hesher is a perfect subject: an anarchic metalhead who gets pumped listening to Metallica and Motorhead, without disdaining some cars set on fire. He is not the usual quirky do-gooder who changes his form during the movie: he is a bastard from start to finish, but he has the rare ability to grasp life's teachings, the ones others seem to overlook.
"Hesher was here" is a film born from the inexperience of its director: it moves forward fitfully, without apparent cinematic meaning, to reach a predictable but beautiful finale (the scene of Hesher’s speech at the funeral is epic). A film that draws all its strength from the main character, capable of becoming it even without being the true protagonist of the story.
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