“Sometimes, a lie’s more truth than the truth,” drawls author JT Leroy, speaking down a crackling telephone line. This straightforward dramatisation of Savannah Knoop’s 2008 memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy details the scandalous, six-year-long ruse created by Knoop (Kristen Stewart) and author Laura Albert (Laura Dern) in the early noughties. Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy wasn’t just Albert’s pseudonym; he was a full-blown literary persona with a salacious backstory of poverty and child abuse that made the teenager’s acclaimed semi-autobiographical novels appear more authentic.
When Albert meets her boyfriend’s shy, androgynous sister Savannah, she sees an opportunity to realise the reclusive LeRoy (the hunched, shuffling Stewart is perfect casting) and turn him into a celebrity phenomenon. Albert styles herself as LeRoy’s mad British manager Speedie; magazine covers and multimillion dollar film adaptations follow. For those familiar with the story, this version of LeRoy’s rise and fall won’t offer new revelations. Still, Dern brings a hungry, manic energy to Albert, a sad and troubled woman who used LeRoy as a vehicle to process her own childhood trauma, while Stewart’s performance is typically interiorised and exacting.
