Heaven Knows What is a fresh and exhilarating jolt of cinema vérité about kids in the late 90s shooting up heroin and finding mad love on the streets of New York.
Arielle Holmes makes her acting debut as Harley. Harley loves Ilya. He gives her life purpose and sets her passion ablaze, but in reality her heart is dominated by a doped-up scumbag who gives her nothing but grief. Their lives as addicts are moment-to-moment, angling an extra fix from the conniving dealer, finding places to crash and shoot up, bumming a card for the subway, asking people for spare change, and dealing with their snarky circle of drug-addicted compatriots. In terms of plot, not that much happens in Heaven Knows What, but each scene is thick with tension. Beneath the filtha is an immense amount of style, but not a romanticism. Many of the scenes are shot from afar with long lenses, so the subjects are in sharp focus, but the world around them is a blur.
Independent filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie came across Arielle Holmes and encouraged her to write down her own story (the soon-to-be-published Mad Love in New York City). This they turned into a striking and revelatory film. Holmes plays a version of herself that simmers with magnetism and intense authenticity. Heaven Knows What provides a powerful and alarmingly realistic insight into a subculture rarely encountered in contemporary cinema.
