An excellent cast works overtime in this aggressively quirky Canadian comedy in the “Little Miss Sunshine” vein, which at least improves on writer-director Dennis Lee’s unfortunate debut feature, “Fireflies in the Garden.”
Cast for the umpteenth time as a single mom, Toni Collette plays an ardent feminist with a tragic family history, including her mother’s immolation during a birthday celebration. She refuses to tell her increasingly curious 12-year-old son Henry (Jason Spevack), who has a photographic memory, the identity of his father.
Then Henry’s eccentric grandpa (Frank Moore) reveals that Henry was procreated from sperm donated by a divorced college professor (Michael Sheen) — who has just published a book on the experimental upbringing of his understandably angry daughter (Samantha Weinstein) titled “Born Gay or Made That Way?”
After Henry publicly kisses his half-sibling to squelch classmates’ speculation about her sexuality, they all go about becoming one great big happy dysfunctional family. Even for a surreal black comedy, “Jesus Henry Christ” requires massive suspension of disbelief.