Another film about junkies? That question almost inevitably follows one’s learning the subject of Josh and Benny Safdie’s New York-set drama “Heaven Knows What,” and its main implication is clear: heroin addiction is at once so limited and so overdone as a narrative premise that filmmakers approaching it need to have something new to say, or to show.
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Unfortunately, the Safdies don’t. Their film is the latest in a long line of movies that seem to assume the milieu of addiction is justification enough for its existence. The result is a work that—like a whole sub-species of French films of the recent decades—fetishizes its own hyper-naturalistic visual style and performances (all but one by non-actors) while offering no original or striking insights into the world it portrays.
No doubt the film’s surface attractions and its core weaknesses both owe to its origins. R…
