Child of God (film)

Child of God
Child of God
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Franco
Screenplay by	James Franco; Vince Jolivette;
Based on	Child of God; by Cormac McCarthy
Produced by	Caroline Aragon; Vince Jolivette; Miles Levy;
Starring	Andrew Ormond; Tim Blake Nelson; Jim Parrack; Nina Ljeti; Brian Lally; James Franco;
Cinematography	Christina Voros
Edited by	Curtiss Clayton
Music by	Aaron Embry
Production; companies	Rabbit Bandini Productions; Made In Film-Land;
Distributed by	Spotlight Pictures
Release date	August 31, 2013 (Venice);
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Child of God is a 2013 American crime drama film co-written and directed by James Franco, and starring Scott Haze, based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. It was selected to be screened in the official competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.^[1]^[2]^[3] The film made its United States premiere at the 51st New York Film Festival and then was screened at the 2013 Austin Film Festival.^[4]^[5]

Plot

Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, in the 1950s, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard. Ballard is a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." 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 descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller, as he falls deeper into madness, crime and degradation.

The film differs from the novel regarding the ending. In the end of the novel Ballard dies in a mental hospital while in the film he escapes from the lynching mob through the tunnels and walks through the Tennessee fields.

Cast

Scott Haze as Lester Ballard
Tim Blake Nelson as Sheriff Fate
James Franco as Jerry
Jim Parrack as Deputy Cotton
Fallon Goodson as Girly
Vince Jolivette as Ernest
Brian Lally as John Greer
Boyd Smith as Mr. Fox

Production

On September 14, James Franco announced at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival that he was set to direct an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's third novel Child of God.

In January 2012, it was announced that Scott Haze had signed on to play Lester Ballard, the film's protagonist. It was also announced that Tim Blake Nelson and Jim Parrack had signed on to play Sheriff Fate and Deputy Cotton, respectively. Production on the film began on January 31, 2012, in West Virginia.

Reception

Child of God has an approval rating of 42% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 50 reviews, and an average rating of 4.9/10. The website's critical consensus states: "An obviously reverent adaptation that fails to make a case for the source material being turned into a movie, Child of God finds director James Franco outmatched by Cormac McCarthy's novel."^[6] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[7]