Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring Catherin 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.