Heaven knows What [2015]: 'Mad Love in New York City'

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Heaven Knows What is a film adaptation of Mad Love in New York City, an unpublished memoir written by Arielle Holmes, who also plays a version of herself in the film. Before even getting into the film itself, it’s impossible not to acknowledge how Heaven Knows What came into existence. Holmes was homeless, addicted to heroin, and living on the streets of New York when she was spotted by brothers Benny and Josh Safdie.

Through conversations with her, the Safdies learned about her life and her obsessive, destructive love story. They asked her to write it down, paying her for every page she wrote. That raw, unfiltered account eventually became the foundation of the film. This origin story matters because Heaven Knows What doesn’t feel like a film that is merely about addiction. It feels like a film that has been dragged out of drug addiction.

Holmes plays Harley, a young woman caught in a relentless cycle of drug addiction and emotional dependency. The film opens with Harley and Ilya making love on the streets of New York, completely indifferent to the world around them. It’s an arresting introduction, not because it’s provocative, but because it immediately establishes the emotional grammar of their relationship. Love, intimacy, and recklessness are inseparable here. Moments later, Harley is seen alone, crying on the street, desperately trying to reconcile with Ilya. When she asks what she can do to be forgiven, his answer is chillingly simple: kill yourself. Harley agrees without hesitation.

This is the film’s central horror. Not the drugs, not the blood, not the physical decay, but the way love is warped into something coercive and transactional. Harley’s willingness to harm herself isn’t framed as melodrama; it’s treated as emotional routine. Even when Ilya later panics and runs after her, demanding she actually follow through if she loves him, the madness feels mutual, cyclical, and deeply ingrained.

Heaven Knows What is not an easy film to watch, nor does it pretend to be accessible. It caters to a specific audience willing to sit with discomfort. Casual viewers may find it exhausting or even pointless, but for those willing to engage with it, the film offers an unflinching portrait of obsession and self-destruction. The Safdies never soften the experience. They don’t offer relief, moral distance, or cinematic comfort.

One of the film’s greatest strengths is its raw filmmaking. The background score creates a suffocating atmosphere, often feeling less like music and more like the internal noise of an addict’s mind. Scenes unfold amid relentless movement: cigarettes being smoked, needles piercing skin, bodies collapsing and rising again. There’s a razor blade, blood flowing from Harley’s wrist, and the camera never flinches. The film refuses to look away from the ugliness of addiction, presenting it without glamour or judgment.

This refusal to romanticize is what gives the film its integrity. Heaven Knows What never glorifies drugs. Addiction here is not poetic, not rebellious, not tragic in a cinematic sense. It is repetitive, exhausting, and corrosive. Love, in this context, becomes another substance, something Harley chases with the same desperation as heroin.

On a personal level, the film struck a painful chord for me. I have a cousin who became addicted to drugs after high school, and his life unraveled in ways that still haven’t fully settled. Watching Heaven Knows What reminded me of him constantly. The behavior, the emotional volatility, the way addiction reshapes relationships and perception all felt disturbingly accurate. Having that reference point made the film’s portrayal feel devastatingly real. It doesn’t exaggerate. It observes.

Arielle Holmes is extraordinary as Harley. Her performance is raw, relentless, and deeply unsettling. Her eyes carry an intensity that feels almost unbearable at times. It’s difficult to think of her as a “non-actor” because what she delivers doesn’t resemble performance in the traditional sense. She isn’t pretending; she’s excavating. Holmes’ physicality, her constant movement, her restless desperation all contribute to a character who feels frighteningly alive. Harley is obsessed with two things: heroin and Ilya, and the film never allows us to separate the two.

The way the film portrays New York further reinforces its realism. This is not the city of landmarks or cinematic beauty. There is no Statue of Liberty, no Empire State Building, no Times Square. Instead, we see basements, dark alleys, cramped apartments, and dingy stores where homeless addicts shoplift to survive. McDonald’s appears not as a symbol of consumer culture, but as a rare source of sustenance. This version of New York feels lived-in, worn-down, and deeply neglected. It reflects a city that thrives while leaving its most vulnerable to rot.

Given Holmes’ lived experience on the streets, it’s likely she played a significant role in grounding these locations. The result is an intoxicating atmosphere that makes Heaven Knows What one of the most disturbing films about addiction in recent years. It doesn’t offer redemption or closure. It simply presents a life spiraling inward, documenting the cost of obsession when love loses all sense of care, balance, or self-preservation.