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SummaryLouis Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard, a violent man, descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.

Child of God

Metascore
50
User score
Mixed or Average
4.1
My Score
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Metascore
50
29% Positive
5 Reviews
41% Mixed
7 Reviews
29% Negative
5 Reviews
  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
Jul 31, 2014
80
The New York Times
What Mr. Franco does have is Mr. Haze, whose mesmerizing performance gives the movie its ballast and its fitful, nervous energy.
Jul 31, 2014
75
Rolling Stone
This is ambitious, challenging filmmaking, elevated by Franco's compassion and Haze's revelatory acting. OK, the film trips up on its attempt to lace tragedy with gallows humor. But Franco is out there trying something, balancing literature and cinema in a tightrope act that is never less than exciting to watch.
User score
Mixed or Average
4.1
20% Positive
2 Ratings
40% Mixed
4 Ratings
40% Negative
4 Ratings
  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
Sep 7, 2017
4
JLuis_001
A strange film, its source material is dark and difficult, but Franco as director and screenwriter does not shy away and gets a job well done, but his mistakes doom it to total darkness.
Aug 25, 2019
3
FilipeNeto
This movie is definitely not for me. This is a movie that was hard to see. In fact, James Franco, the director, was certainly aware that the film is unpleasant and would be the target of harsh criticism. In fact, the movie can truly shock the most sensitive viewer and is totally inadvisable for those under 18 (in fact, even some more easily impressionable adults should avoid this movie). Ok, I recognize: this movie is sick. Far from being a movie for everyone, it is a movie for very few. The script goes something like this: a rude and **** lumberjack from rural America, whose father committed suicide and whose mother disappeared, has just seen his house auctioned off and his rude character and inability to discern right from wrong make him a outlawed, hated by all and avoided by all. Violence and primitive instincts arise in a man who has left society and will devote himself wholly to his most basic desires, including necrophilia, the unhealthy sexual activity he will engage in to the point of killing. Firstly, we should congratulate Franco and Scott Haze, who are the director / screenwriter and the lead actor. Haze played a nasty and brutal character very intensely and earnestly. Franco was able to direct his actors and give them the material needed for their work. The film has an intense and lively soundtrack, but a very slow pace. Technically, I appreciated the use of handheld cameras for filming to give the movie an even more disturbing tone. But despite the positive features (central actor performance, good soundtrack, good technical aspects, etc.), this movie is not really for me. I hated it.
Sep 17, 2013
60
Variety
The crazed intensity of Franco’s filmmaking, while duly evocative of Haze’s primitive state, is ultimately too hectic and unmodulated for anything to burrow deep and stay there.
Jul 27, 2014
50
Slant Magazine
James Franco's general aesthetic is ugly and ambling, not so much because of its brownish-gray monochrome, but because it registers like the jerky result of a college kid wielding a DV cam.
Jul 29, 2014
40
Time Out
It could have been so much worse; we wish it was a lot better.
Jul 29, 2014
30
The Dissolve
What’s left in the absence of McCarthy’s prose is a sincere but fundamentally pointless ode to a madman, which does little more than invite viewers to gawk at the unspeakable.
Sep 17, 2013
25
The Playlist
The whole thing feels sort of tossed off, like it was made by film students over a couple of weekends.
See All 17 Critic Reviews
Jun 28, 2020
1
DrBlahBlah
Dear Franco, please stop ruining the classics. Faulkner and McCarthy deserve better. Thank you.
See All 10 User Reviews
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  • Rabbit Bandini Productions
  • Made In Film-Land
Aug 1, 2014
1 h 44 m
R
Playhouse West Film Festival - Los Angeles
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Hamptons International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Venice Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
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