Truth | Little White Lies

Truth

04 Mar 2016 / Released: 04 Mar 2016

Blonde woman with curly hair in a beige top, with hand on chin in a thoughtful pose, in an interior setting.
Blonde woman with curly hair in a beige top, with hand on chin in a thoughtful pose, in an interior setting.
4

Anticipation.

Anything starring Blanchett is now considered utterly essentially.

3

Enjoyment.

A great performance in a substantial (if highly conventional) drama.

3

In Retrospect.

Fine in the moment, though hardly a film that lingers long in the mind.

Cate Blanchett is reli­ably mag­net­ic as a TV news pro­duc­er attempt­ing to take down George W Bush.

It’s very strange that a movie like Spot­light should soar all the way to the pris­tine heights of Oscar glo­ry, while a dop­pel­gänger movie like Truth should fail to even depart from the land­ing strip. In more than super­fi­cial ways, the films are very sim­i­lar, first­ly in that they are styled as old fash­ioned pro­ce­du­rals, and sec­ond­ly that they are both out-and-out cel­e­bra­tions of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism. But where Spot­light gave us a sto­ry in which good ol’ elbow grease wins out and jus­tice pre­vails, Truth is more con­cerned with the small but vital details that have the pow­er to top­ple the entire house of cards.

James Vanderbilt’s film is inspired by an episode of US news pro­gramme 60 Min­utes, anchored by elder states­man of broad­cast media, Dan Rather (played by elder states­man of cin­e­ma, Robert Red­ford). His team, head­ed up by pro­duc­er Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett), are out to nail then-pres­i­dent George W Bush as incrim­i­nat­ing details of his blotchy mil­i­tary ser­vice record have sur­faced. The facts need to be dis­cov­ered the cor­rob­o­rat­ed, but beyond that, a deci­sion needs to be made as to whether they can and should be trans­mit­ted to the nation’s TV sets. Every­thing has been checked and checked twice, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty for human error is neg­li­gi­ble. But when the show airs, the blow­back is severe.

Mapes has to ear­mark the Bush die-hards who will do any­thing to defend their leader, even if it means cir­cum­vent­ing log­ic to pre­serve his image. But things get com­pli­cat­ed when the team’s star wit­ness – on whose tes­ti­mo­ny the entire case rests – decides to U‑turn and admit that he lied to the jour­nal­ists and, by exten­sion, the entire coun­try. What next? What can you do beyond beg this source for rea­son? Should you have to humil­i­ate your­self to get to the truth? And if that doesn’t work, should you then try to humil­i­ate your source as a way to save face?

Truth is inter­est­ing because it’s not a lib­er­al trea­tise that’s out to prove to the world that George Bush was a bum and a trai­tor dur­ing his for­ma­tive years. It wants to show how time dilutes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cer­tain­ty. The fur­ther we get from a fact, the more blur­ry and indis­tinct it becomes. Plus, it appears far eas­i­er for those want­i­ng to claim it as a false­hood than it does for those want­i­ng to claim it as fact.

The film is decent­ly put togeth­er and rides on a typ­i­cal­ly great and ful­ly invest­ed per­for­mance from Blanchett. What’s also inter­est­ing is Mapes rela­tion­ship with Rather, and the fact that even though he is a vet­er­an of TV news jour­nal­ism, he always defers to Mapes’ deci­sions. It’s inter­est­ing and grat­i­fy­ing, in that respect, that Mapes gen­der nev­er comes into play through­out this ordeal.

You might like