Heav­en Adores You

Depres­sion isn’t cut and dried. Despite the deeply melan­cholic mood shroud­ing much of the late Elliott Smith’s work, and the per­son­al demons he is report­ed to have faced, it’s no less valid nor wor­thy for any film to empha­sise the hap­pi­er side to Smith as a way to cel­e­brate his artis­tic achieve­ments and cre­ative spirit.

Through­out Nick­o­las Dylan Rossi’s Heav­en Adores You, the dark­er aspects of Smith’s life are swept under the cin­e­mat­ic rug: a tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with his step­fa­ther that caused him to move across coun­try; a recur­ring his­to­ry of drug abuse; bat­tles with depres­sion; an aver­sion to fame; and final­ly, his suicide.

As the sto­ry arc comes full-cir­cle in neat chrono­log­i­cal fash­ion – the only notable absence being the girl­friend who was with him at the time of his death – there’s an unshake­able feel­ing that we are not see­ing the entire pic­ture. The issue of Smith’s sui­cide is raised at the begin­ning of the film via archive audio footage, and once more at the end. But direc­tor Rossi opts to skirt around the sub­ject rather than explore it head-on.

That aside, Heav­en Adores You, much like Smith’s music, is slow and med­i­ta­tive. Which in and of itself isn’t a prob­lem. But the end­less­ly repet­i­tive nature of the shots them­selves is. Regard­less of how strik­ing the imagery or how affect­ing the music accom­pa­ny­ing these scenes may be, there are a finite num­ber of creep­ing, sweep­ing shots pan­ning var­i­ous cityscapes and mea­sured zooms in and out of old pho­tos that should be allowed in a film like this. Hell, any film for that matter.

There is no ques­tion that Elliott Smith’s work deserves to be cel­e­brat­ed. That he is still attract­ing new fans and devot­ed fol­low­ers some 12 years after his death is a tes­ta­ment to his tal­ent and out­put. But the beau­ty of Smith’s work is how del­i­cate­ly nuanced it is, the tiny moments of warmth that emerge amid such deep sad­ness. It is this nuance that, aside from live footage of Smith him­self, Heav­en Adores You miss­es almost entirely.