Heaven Adores You

Description

“He just looked like a normal dude,” says photographer Autumn de Wilde midway through Heaven Adores You of the decidedly unglamorous indie rock singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, yet as director Nickolas Rossi reveals in this elegiac documentary, there was nothing ordinary about Smith’s boundless musical talent. A mainstay of the Portland, Oregon underground scene, Smith honed a uniquely melancholy yet tuneful approach to pop. Weary of having his delicate melodies and poetic lyrics drowned out by the grunge era’s fashionable distortion, Smith stripped down his sound to stark acoustic guitar and released a series of stunningly intimate records that garnered the attention of the indie cognoscenti including filmmaker Gus Van Sant, who featured Smith’s “Miss Misery” in Good Will Hunting. Visibly uncomfortable under the mainstream spotlight, a rumple-suited Smith performed at the 1998 Academy Awards, predictably losing to Celine Dion, yet achieving an unexpected new level of success clearly at odds with his shy demeanor. Dogged for years by alcohol and drug addiction, Smith died in 2003 at age 34, leaving behind a legacy of timeless tunes and unanswered questions about his troubled life and shocking death. Rossi deftly sidesteps “behind the music” clichés in telling Smith’s tale, layering onstage footage and poignant interviews with family, friends and colleagues with rain-streaked images of vacant landscapes, emphasizing Smith’s emotionally resonant presence through a visual motif of corporeal absence. What remains is gorgeous music, at the forefront of this equally lovely film. –Steven Jenkins

Trailer

Film Details