Heaven Knows What (Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Gorkem Erdogan. Viewed at the AFIFest 2014.

‘Heaven Knows What’ takes us to the streets of New York, life of a group of junkies but mainly focuses on twisted relationship between two teenagers in the group, Harley (Arielle Holmes) and Ilya (Caleb Landry Jones). The film starts with a passionate love scene between them and successfully accomplish of telling audience that they love each other so much. After Harley makes an offer to Ilya in a library, to show her love to him, they decide to stay apart but Harley finds herself in another man’s arms and things start to get intense.  The film, directed by Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie, have successfully shows us the urban life of New York. Characters look so real that makes you believe that they are real street people. It is definitely an intense film but might be the best of its kind since “Requiem for a Dream” and a must see if you are a fan of this kind of films.