Review of Unbelievable Truth, The

Introduction

The unbelievable truth is either that Josh is a mass murderer, a priest, a thief, a mechanic or a murderer and rapist. Everyone in the small Long Island town thinks they know why Josh Hutton (Robert John Burke) was in prison, and now that he`s back home, everyone airs their suspicions.

A doomsday fixated high school student, Audrey, is intrigued and drawn to the quiet Josh, despite what the gossips and her overbearing father are saying, but the truth eventually rises to the surface clearing up all the misunderstandings.

Video

Presented with a 1.78:1 widescreen enhanced transfer, The Unbelievable Truth is perfectly watchable. Being an American indie shot for just $75k, the scenes are well lit with fair colour rendition and detail. Blacks however are dark grey, as if the brightness was turned up.

Audio

Its Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack serves the film adequately. Dialogue and music are clear and there are no discernible problems. Being dialogue driven there`s no need for anything more fancy.

Features

Easy to navigate menus with a few extras:

• Business is Business: A conversation with Hal Hartley (15:07) - An interesting if short interview covering a lot of ground from his beginnings through to his other films and influences.

• Gallery - Production stills taken from the set and film.

• Trailers - Trailers for other C`est La Vie titles.

• Colour Booklet - This contains a short perfunctory biography on director Hal Hartley with a selected filmography.

There are a couple of errors on the back of the box. The film running time is 86-minutes, not 90. In addition, I`ve never heard of the aspect ratio, "1:16.9". I think someone overlooked this. The Unbelievable Truth has no subtitles. The only thing of interest is the brief conversation piece.

Conclusion

This is Hal Hartley`s feature debut and having previously enjoyed one of his later films, Amateur, I was pleasantly surprised by The Unbelievable Truth. The story telling within the town is straightforward and its characters and dialogue are interesting. Even more interesting is that there isn`t a plot of any sort here. As the film plays we follow characters and just observe what they do and what they say; it`s like hanging out with a bunch of people where there isn`t a great deal going on but they have a lot to say.

It`s not intentionally funny either though the character behaviours are. Audrey`s father in particular is quite a funny stereotype of the protective working class father.

The Unbelievable Truth is one of those films that you`ll see a few times and perhaps wonder what it was all about. Time passes by easily enough with its slow pace, but it`s not something I would call hugely entertaining. It is a nice film though and I enjoyed watching it. It won`t appeal to a huge audience so if you`re familiar with Hal Hartley or like Amateur, I think you`ll like this.