With an excellent cast in Jonah Hill (Finkel), James Franco (Longo) and Felicity Jones (Jill), it was pretty easy for me to be intrigued by this drama. All three have proven over the years that they have the ability to give fantastic performances and going into this film I thought this could be another home-run for each of them. Needless to say, I was disappointed in the outcome. For me, the acting throughout seemed quite forced and did not often fit the scenes. I think the main problem I had, was that I had a hard time believing Jonah Hill as he was portraying Mike Finkel. Now I am not saying he did a bad job or his acting was terrible, it is just for me he did not seem to dive deep into who Finkel was. I had a hard time caring for what was happening to his character and just overall had a hard time trying to relate to the things he was going through. Felicity Jones, to me, was completely underutilized. Her character of Jill often seemed completely forced in order to create some sort of conflict, whether it being with Finkel or when she randomly started to talk to Longo. Her interactions with Longo seemed to strictly be in there in order to advance what was happening and did not fit the story at all.
For me the standout performance in the film was James Franco. His portrayal of Christian Longo gave me this sense of unease and had me questioning what his real motives were. He kept you guessing as to what really happened that night his family was killed and drew you in to show how he can change your opinion on Longo as the film moves along. He kept the story flowing smoothly and I continued to want to see more of his character to try and understand who he was as a person. There are good moments in the film that do make it worth seeing. Masanobu Takayanagi provides beautiful cinematography throughout. The opening shots of the film completely drew me in and reminded me of the look Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners had. The story itself is also intriguing enough to keep you tied into the plot to see the ultimate outcome of each character. True Story is not a bad movie in any sense, it just had the potential to be a great film and for me it started off strong then slowly started to fall flat.
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Authors:Pat Brennan: Recent Film grad from Temple University with a love for all aspects of film. David Fincher for life. Archives:
November 2016
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