The Unbelievable Truth
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Movie Reviews of The Unbelievable Truth
Movie Review: where is trust????
Summary: 5 Stars
i agree with chad taylor! there must be a really good reason
why the movie TRUST has not been released on dvd...when i need
a fix i have to dust off the vcr---that should be illegal.
Movie Review: incredible movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It is a movie that constantly makes you think about the journey we call life. The writing is the key.Movie Review: Extremely funny 80's the world is going to end kitsch!
Summary: 4 Stars
The characters are bright and full and the dialogue is fresh and funny. Enjoy!Movie Review: A guilty pleasure
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm usually a pretty hard-line guy when it comes to movies. I'm the type who likes foreign films and classics and cerebral character dramas. The Unbelievable Truth is much lighter fare than that. Looking at this movie analytically, I can't exactly say it's such a great movie. But for whatever inexplicable reasons, I find it highly enjoyable.
This movie doesn't have the exciting plot. Most of the plot events are actually pretty mundane everyday slice-of-life events of ordinary people's lives. But there is something about the texture of this movie that is appealing in a unique sort of way. I just like being in the space of this movie.
It takes place in what appears to be a small town where everyone has known everyone else for a long time. It's not sweet or bucolic like the Andy Griffith Show. But people are connected in homey but believable way. Yet there's just enough of a touch of eccentricity to make it fresh and unusual. The two main characters are a cute teenage girl obsessed with nuclear war, and an ex-convict who is soft spoken and cerebral whom everyone in town describes as "like a priest or something." It has an appealing musical score that I can't get out of my head. This isn't a laugh-out-loud sort of comedy, but it does have a humorous tone.
Yet beneath all this, there is a subtext of developing ideas for the cerebrally adventurous. It contemplates the nature of money. The practice of making deals, of bartering one good for another and what that role that practice plays in life, is a recurring theme in the movie. Is life just a series of deals to gain assurances that certain things will be delivered? Or is there a point where one must accept that there is no certainty and have some faith?
No doubt, many who watch this movie will wonder where on earth I'm getting that. They'll watch it and see only a cute quirky inconsequential comdey. But for cerebral perceptive viewers, you'll find something here to chew on.
I always appreciate some info about sensitivity myself, so I'll give some here. Unfortunately, there is some excess profanity that for my taste was unnecessary and didn't match the tone of the film. Though there are a couple of mentions of sex, there are no sexual encounters at all in this movie. There is no violence.
I have to give this only 3 stars because much of it pretty lightweight stuff, and not the strongest plot in the world. This is not monumental drama. But in terms of pure enjoyment, I'd probably be more like a 4½ star movie for me. It's atypical for what I usually like.
Movie Review: Unbelievable Fun
Summary: 3 Stars
Fraught with over obvious symbolism, Hartley's early feature is nonetheless a joy to watch. Hal here shows us his uncanny ability to cast his characters perfectly came early in his career.Adrienne Shelley is a near perfect foil to herself, equal parts annoying teen burgeoning in her sexuality (though using sex for several years); obsessed with doom and inspired by idealism gone wrong she is deceptively - and simultaneously - complex and simple. Her Audrey inspires so many levels of symbolism it is almost embarrassingly rich (e.g., her modeling career beginning with photos of her foot - culminating her doing nude (but unseen) work; Manhattan move; Europe trip; her stealing, then sleeping with the mechanics wrench, etc.)
As Josh, Robert Burke gives an absolutely masterful performance. A reformed prisoner/penitent he returns to his home town to face down past demons, accept his lot and begin a new life. Dressed in black, and repeatedly mistaken for a priest, he corrects everyone ("I'm a mechanic"), yet the symbolism is rich: he abstains from alcohol, he practices celibacy (is, in fact a virgin), and seemingly has taken on vows of poverty, and humility as well. The humility seems hardest to swallow seeming, at times, almost false, a pretense. Yet, as we learn more of Josh we see genuineness in his modesty, that his humility is indeed earnest and believable. What seems ironic is the character is fairly forthright in his simplicity, yet so richly drawn it becomes the viewer who wants to make him out as more than what he actually is. A fascinatingly written character, perfectly played.
The scene between Josh and Jane (a wonderful, young Edie Falco . . . "You need a woman not a girl") is hilarious . . . real. But Hartley can't leave it as such and his trick, having the actors repeat the dialogue over-and-over becomes frustratingly "arty" and annoying . . . until again it becomes hilarious. What a terrific sense of bizarre reality this lends the film (like kids in a perpetual "am not"/"are too" argument).
Hartley's weaves all of a small neighborhood's idiosyncrasies into a tapestry of seeming stereotypes but which delves far beneath the surface, the catalyst being that everyone believes they know what the "unbelievable truth" of the title is, yet no two people can agree (including our hero) on what exactly that truth is. A wonderful little movie with some big ideas.
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