Heaven Adores You

“I’ll never be a big rock star. Not that I try to avoid anything. But I am the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous,” says singer-songwriter Elliot Smith in a TV interview. seems to be suggesting that perhaps he was right. Over the 90-minute course of the film, friends, family and colleagues from the music world talk about the Elliot they knew before he became famous for his soundtrack for , about the course his life took afterwards, and about how it affected him. Following success with his band Heatmiser in Portland, Smith left for New York where he became a big rock star after all. In 2003, he was found dead in his apartment in Los Angeles. The interviews are intercut with tranquil, evocative shots of streets, buildings, roads and nature, a meditative series of aerial shots of cities, endless rows of green treetops and close-ups of industrial settings, all accompanied by Elliot Smith’s folk-punk music and his gentle, fragile singing voice. That fragility was also his strength, and he was much loved for it. We see how all the people around Smith held a special place in their hearts for him. At the end, Elliot sings for them: “All I want now is happiness for you and me.”