Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke
MPAA rating: PG for thematic and suggestive elements, and for smoking and brief language
Running time: 1 hour and 46 minutes

by Ryan Smillie

After Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters (2018), his compassionate masterpiece about a makeshift family living on the margins of an unnamed Japanese city, it might have been reasonable to guess that his next film would continue his two-decade-long exploration of the fringes of Japanese society. Instead, The Truth, his follow-up feature, sees Kore-eda leaving his usual milieu to capture the tense reunion of a famed French actress and her screenwriter daughter (French film titans Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, in their first on-screen appearance together). Kore-eda’s first film set outside of Japan and not filmed in Japanese, The Truth is clearly distinct from the rest of his filmography, but lacks none of the heart and emotional complexity that make his films so moving.

Upon the release of celebrated actress Fabienne Dangeville’s (Deneuve) memoir, her daughter Lumir (Binoche) travels from New York to Paris, ostensibly to celebrate the book’s release, but clearly eager to take issue with any inaccuracies in the memoir - and it doesn’t take long for Lumir to find them. Lumir’s still-living father, Fabienne’s ex-husband, has been killed off, Fabienne’s current partner isn’t mentioned at all, and most of all, Fabienne’s golden recollections of motherhood are at odds with Lumir’s own childhood memories. Fabienne excuses her exaggerations and elisions as simply her prerogative as an actress, but a mysterious Sarah from her past seems too painful for her to bring up, and too important for Lumir to let go.

Synopses of The Truth that suggest a Gallic August: Osage County do a disservice to the tenderness and subtlety throughout the film. Yes, long-held resentments between a mother and a daughter anchor the movie. Sure, some uncomfortable truths do come to light. And of course, there’s the requisite dinner table confrontation. But The Truth, like most Kore-eda films, is a quieter movie than its plot suggests, more concerned with the ways people care for each other and the weight of their pasts than their explosive arguments.

This contemplative bent is emphasized through the science fiction movie Fabienne is shooting as Lumir and her family visit. Adapted from a Ken Liu short story, Memories of My Mother tells the story of a mother who seems never to age due to years of space travel as she returns to Earth every few years to visit her normally-aging daughter. Fabienne plays the daughter in her later years, while the mother is played by a rising star often compared to Fabienne’s Sarah. A perfect complement to the rest of the film, Memories of My Mother allows Deneuve plenty of opportunity to showcase the many dimensions of Fabienne - an actress envious of her younger colleagues, a mother who might only be able to understand her daughter through her work, a woman haunted by someone who died too soon.

Arguably, the most successful French actresses of the past half-century, Deneuve and Binoche are thrilling to watch together. Without any major fireworks, both women so thoroughly inhabit their characters and suggest decades of misunderstandings and a failure to connect. Kore-eda takes full advantage of their legacies, knowing that you don’t need to do much more than put Deneuve on screen to suggest sixty years of film experience (though a number of cheeky The Belle of Paris posters scattered around Fabienne’s house, referencing Deneuve’s star turn in Belle de Jour, are certainly amusing), and slyly having Binoche as Lumir deny that she ever wanted to be an actress. And maybe it’s just because I watched The Young Girls of Rochefort a few days ago, but any discussion of Sarah made me think of Françoise Dorléac, Deneuve’s sister and costar who died in a car crash at 25, just months after the release of Jacques Demy’s deliriously entertaining musical. (It’s always a good time to watch “A Pair of Twins”)

Kore-eda, like Ozu before him, uses the seasons as simple, but effective metaphors. Outside of Fabienne’s castle-like home, it is the beginning of a Parisian autumn, and the multiple shots of a tree’s changing and falling leaves felt like one of the few visual ties between Kore-eda’s older films and his newest. Compare the unfettered joy of Our Little Sister’s bike ride under the blooming cherry blossoms to The Truth’s attempts to come to terms with the past as the leaves fall outside. Also like Ozu, Kore-eda is concerned with what our responsibilities are to our loved ones and what we owe to each other, but in a fitting 21st century twist, his conclusions tend to be less conclusive. The truth is important, in The Truth and otherwise, but is it the factual truth that matters or the emotional truth? I’m not sure that Kore-eda could tell you, and that’s part of the beauty of The Truth.   

Opens in select theaters and on demand July 3, find more info here.