So, after trashing two well-intentioned movies about the Good and the Beautiful, I am now going to commend a cinematic paean to heroin addiction. This is why normal people think that critics are perverse. Alison Maclean's Jesus' Son, from a cycle of short stories by Denis Johnson, is a lively, quirky, lyrically rambling meditation on life, death, and fate among the narcotically numbed-out, and has more laughs, wisdom, and tragedy than most putatively high-minded productions. And it's not exactly a paean to heroin addiction, either; many of its characters pay dearly for their recreational preferences, while its protagonist, a poetic goofball known to one and all as FH(short for "Fuckhead"), achieves the redemption implied by the title. Watching the narratively loose-limbed Jesus' Son is like sitting in a bar with a well-traveled storyteller who you're not sure you can trust — you're simultaneously unsettled and entertained. As FH, Billy Crudup embodies slacker charm; Samantha Morton, as the girl who initiates him into junkiedom, is as dreamy as an opium reverie; and while the presence of well-worn indie standbys Dennis Hopper and Denis Leary in the opening credits may give some viewers pause, their work here is understated and apt. The ineffable Jack Black and fearless Holly Hunter also contribute mightily. If Trainspotting made the junkie life look like a wild ride, Jesus' Son gets closer to the truth of things; it's as unsparing in its depiction of what makes people shoot up in the first place as it is in showing how good the druggie life can feel — and how bad it can really get.