THE TRUTH
In his follow to last-year’s award-winning Shoplifters, celebrated director Hirokazu Kore-eda journeys to France for this tale of an uneasy reunion between a mother and daughter, played by Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.
Despite shooting outside his native Japan for the first time, Kore-eda, who’s latest film is set in the Parisian countryside, proves that his unerring feel for family dynamics remains as sharp and nuanced as ever. Reveling in their first opportunity to work together, Deneuve and Binoche are simply marvelous. Deneuve plays Fabienne, a legendary diva of the French screen who has just published her autobiography. Binoche is her daughter Lumir, a successful screenwriter in Hollywood, whose copy of Fabienne’s book is positively exploding with post-its, each one flagging a perceived recasting of their personal history. Though still reeling from her mother’s revisionist take on their lives, Lumir reluctantly agrees to assist Fabienne on the set of her latest film. As shooting begins, the uneasy détente the two have maintained for years begins to crumble, and unspoken resentments slowly give way to a new, tender understanding. Costarring Ethan Hawke as Lumir’s husband—who is having his own crisis of honesty with their young daughter—Kore-eda’s latest poignantly explores how truth and honesty can sometimes survive inside the lies we tell ourselves and our loved ones.
CAST: CATHERINE DENEUVE, JULIETTE BINOCHE, ETHAN HAWKE, CLEMENTINE GRENIER
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