True Story (2015)

Top comments

1. 

   thekure23

   I absolutely love James Franco and Jonah Hill, and they both played their parts wonderfully in True Story. The movie as a whole, however, simply didn't get my attention. It starts out great - mysterious vibe, beautiful pictures and such - but then it just stops being all that interesting. It lacked suspense and depth, and ended up being dull. Plain and simple. 8 years 9 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   I feel a real ambivalence toward True Story. If you don't know it, it's about a disgraced journalist (Jonah Hill) who becomes interested in a man who allegedly killed his family (James Franco) and then hid out under the journalist's name. Their stories converge while Franco awaits trial, and the two have conversations in preparation for Hill's comeback as a true crime novelist. The more I look at it, the more I like it as a piece of film. The first act in particular is visually clever and redolent with meanings. But as a STORY, it's pretty dull, and can't give you firm resolutions because it WAS a true story, and they seldom do. I completely respect how director Rupert Goold tried to make this a "fable" that transcends its origins in fact (described in the commentary track that makes him come off as pretentious given the film's failures), but the factual is a distraction that makes you miss that other level. Nothing is really taken to its natural limit. This might be... An exploration of "true crime" and the impossibility of truth coming out of eyewitness accounts? A fable about a man who encounters his dark side, a double who represents depression and despair and is trying to take over his life? A thriller in which the villain completely manipulates the hero as reality bends in on itself? A character study about an arrogant man who loses everything and is left forever shaken? It is all these things, and yet none of them. Should have picked one and really explored it. Basically, when you first see it, it's a bore. When you watch it again, through filters previously unavailable, it becomes much more interesting. But will you want to watch it again? 8 years 3 months ago
3. 

   josue.a.o

   Some true events from this movie really hurt...

   
   - The journalists who's crime was to lie to embellish his stories to attract larger audience, was kicked out of the New York times for ethical reasons. And the man who killed all his family members got access to writing articles in the New York Times... is that ethical? Is not the murder a much worse crime than lying?
   - Do we (as audience) are more interested in following killer minds than in the slavery children of cacao plants? Are we as audience being 'ethical'? Why we as audience care more about a (anti)hero figure than million others suffering injustice?
   

   2 years 9 months ago

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