Sundance Profile: Hesher–Starring Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rainn Wilson

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday, January 21 in Park City Utah, featuring a great slate of low-budget and independent films all vying to get picked up by studios for distribution. One film that I’m particularly interested in is Hesher. The film is writtern and directed by Spencer Susser, who made a splash at Sundance last year with his Zombie short film, I Love You Sarah Jane. The film features an awesome cast including Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rainn Wilson. It really looks like it’s going to be a great, unique story, and JGL is seemingly going all out for his character (see picture above).

The film, co-written with David Michod, tells the story of a 13 year old boy named T.J..  After the tragic loss of his Mother, T.J., Along with his pill popping father (Wilson), are forced to live with his elderly Grandmother. A young man with with a troubled past named Hesher (Levitt) assumes the role as both mentor and tormentor, leading T.J into troubles he could never have imagined. A young grocery clerk named Nicole (Portman) steps in to protect T.J from a vicious attack, and becomes the object of T.J’s fantasies. And Hesher moves into Grandma’s home, although uninvited, he is somehow accepted.

Hesher’s profile page on the Sundance website features a behind-the-scenes video, showing footage of the film supplemented by some interesting insight by Susser. Check out the video below. We’ll have wait to see how Hesher performs at Sundance before we know what studio picks it up and when/where it’ll be released.

What Do You Think? Discuss.