This documentary self-portrait of actor and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette, his life and dysfunctional family relationships, chronicles his wild ride for over twenty years, from age eleven in 1983 to 2003. When an overdose of Lithium taken by his mother, Renee, leaves her in desperate need of his time and love, he returns from Manhattan to his native Texas. After years of shock treatments and a host of hospitalizations, the overdose in 2002 left Renee in a manic and child-like state and provided the catalyst for the film, though it becomes clear Caouette has been making this movie in his head for all of those twenty years, probably not ever imagining that it could or would come together as a cohesive story. Though voice over narration by Jonathan puts the start of Renee’s problems as an accidental fall when she was 12 years old, revealing home movie clips and old answering machine messages suggest the family had deeper and earlier issues.

A natural born drama queen with endless energy, Caouette recorded growing up with his mother and grandparents, Rosemary and Adolph, in various video formats. An eerily accurate performance of an adolescent Jonathan, in make-up, housecoat and hair curlers, adlibbing a much older battered woman, is early evidence of his flair for the footlights. A former bright-faced and beautiful child model, Renee makes non-specific accusations of abuse against her parents, who legally adopted Jonathan when Renee proved unable to care for him. Supporting these claims, Rosemary appears totally stoned in many of the videos and the family is still somewhat of a mystery at the conclusion, but that fragmentation of the family serves to make it more interesting. Recruiting his grandmother for the cast and crew, who sportingly took his direction in their home movies, and with his mother usually off in her own orbit, he developed his own personality disorder of depersonalization.

Using the archives of 160 hours of material Caouette had accumulated that go back to his grandparents wedding in 1951, he puts the cost of his film at about $218.00, but don’t let that discourage you. Marked by fast paced cutting, split and multiple screens, flashy color washes, clips and snips from films, songs, and TV shows of the 1970s and 80s, and effective use of on-screen text, though tough to watch at times, its well worth the effort.