There are degrees of truth. We all hold back certain details of the stories we tell. Maybe those details aren’t important, or they detract from the narrative or cloud the message. Or is that just what we tell ourselves? Maybe we hide those parts because they make the storyteller look bad. Maybe we don’t want to believe they happened at all.
True Story -- a thought-provoking if dreary exploration of that theme -- is based on the memoir of Michael Finkel, a real-life former New York Times reporter who came to be the confidant of one of the most notorious criminal defendants in America.
As the opening titles materialize, a small child sleeps inside an open suitcase, curled up on a pile of clothes. One imagines a preceding scene in which the pajama-wearing toddler -- perhaps protesting her father’s imminent business trip -- throws herself on top of his packed luggage before finally giving in to exhaustion. But that image of snug repose quickly dissolves into horror. A pair of hands zip the suitcase shut as the realization sets in that this precious little girl isn’t sleeping.
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True Story -- a thought-provoking if dreary exploration of that theme -- is based on the memoir of Michael Finkel, a real-life former New York Times reporter who came to be the confidant of one of the most notorious criminal defendants in America.
As the opening titles materialize, a small child sleeps inside an open suitcase, curled up on a pile of clothes. One imagines a preceding scene in which the pajama-wearing toddler -- perhaps protesting her father’s imminent business trip -- throws herself on top of his packed luggage before finally giving in to exhaustion. But that image of snug repose quickly dissolves into horror. A pair of hands zip the suitcase shut as the realization sets in that this precious little girl isn’t sleeping.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...