A review of the new French film “The Truth”
In the 1960s, I was a tiny bit in love with French actress Catherine Deneuve (“Repulsion”, “Belle De Jour”, “Mayerling”). For decades, I’ve been more than a little bit in love with French actress Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”, “Chocolat”, “Clouds Of Sils Maria”). So the opportunity to see both in this (largely) French-language film, in which they play mother (actress Fabrienne) and daughter (screenwriter Lumir) respectively was a real attraction.
They are eminently watchable – as are the support actors including Ethan Hawke – but the movie lacks cohesion and spark, probably because Japanese writer and director Hirokazu Kore-eda, so accomplished as writer and director of the Japanese film “Shoplifters”, is operating outside his milieu and over-complicates the narrative with the emphasis on the making of another film within this film.