Based on the memoir, “Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy” by Savannah Knoop, writer-director Justin Long’s J.T. LEROY (co-written by Knoop) tells the story of one of a genuinely bizarre, captivating tale, going beyond the headlines to tell the story of the most compelling literary ‘hoax’ of our generation. Laura Albert (Laura Dern) writes as her “avatar,” a disenfranchised young queer man named JT LeRoy. When her debut novel becomes a best-seller and JT becomes the darling of the literary world, she comes up with a unique solution to preserve her anonymity but give life to her nom-de-plume.

Enter her boyfriend’s androgynous sister Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart), who connects with Laura’s punk, feminist, outsider universe and agrees to be JT in the public eye. Together, they embark on a wild ride of double lives, infiltrating the Hollywood and literary elite, and discovering who they are while pretending to be someone else. Also starring Diane Kruger, Jim Sturgess, Courtney Love.

Thursday, May 23
Doors 8:15 pm | Movie 8:45 pm

Advance tickets $10.50 HERE | $12.50 at the door

*Minors permitted in the balcony. Must be 19+ w/ID for bar service and main floor seating.
**Rio Theatre Groupons and passes OK! Please redeem at the door.

“Anchored by its two excellent leads — Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart — J.T. LeRoy is a sympathetic and, for the most part, unsentimental telling of the story of a literary hoax.” (The New York Times)

“The new film smartly illuminates what’s been missing from other accounts: Why someone like Knoop would agree to, and even enjoy, taking part in someone else’s hoax.” (NPR)

“Twenty years after their debut novel became a cultural tour de force and fourteen years after the author was revealed to be the elaborate performance of a woman and her family who got in in way over their heads, it’s easy to forget just how bonkers this story was.” (Pajiba)

J.T. LEROY (Justin Kelly, 2019 / 105 mins / 14A) A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.