Sundance: Jonah Hill Tries To Pry the "True Story" Out of James Franco
Saturday, January 31, 2015 at 5:00PM 
Michael C. here at Sundance
Most of the buzz around Rupert Goold's True Story is going to focus on comedic compadres James Franco and Jonah Hill facing off in a pair of hefty dramatic roles. The fact that they are the biggest names attached means they are probably going to take the heat for the fact that the film comes up short of its potential, but I'm inclined to pin the blame on the screenplay. The stars came to play, but they can only go so far with a material that never digs deep enough into these characters to make their battle of wits jolt to life.
Once you get past the novelty factor, the casting of Franco and Hill reflects back on their familiar personas in interesting ways. Franco, an actor who is priceless in the right role and lost at sea in the wrong one, is used well in a role that capitalizes on his enigmatic quality. Like the public that can't quite pin down the real Franco, Hill's Michael Finkel spends the film trying to get a read on Franco's Christian Longo, a man accused of killing his wife and three children with no apparent motive. Soon after the bodies of his wife and one his daughters are discovered dumped in a river after being stuffed into suitcases, Longo is picked up in Mexico using Finkel's name as an alias. When Finkel confronts him about the identity theft he sees the potential for a great story but whenever he gets close to the truth Longo shuts down and clams up...
Franco passes up the invitation to overact, lowering his voice to a purr, and draining himself of personality so that we can read multiple interpretations into his blank slate. Is he an innocent man protecting someone? Is he a compulsive liar running a con? Or is he is simply an empty person with nothing there to uncover but the bland evil of a person without a conscience?
Jonah Hill's stock-in-trade is hyper-intensity. Whether it's berating Christopher Mintz-Plasse for choosing the name "McLovin" or pushing garbage stocks in Wolf of Wall Street he zeroes in on his target like a laser. As Finkel he dials back the manic energy but the sharp focus remains. He plays Finkel as a sharp guy who doesn't miss much but who is capable of becoming so focused on his goals that he loses sight of the big picture.
True Story develops not into a story of "who is manipulating who?" but which of them is doing the better job of it. It's a mutually parasitic relationship. Finkel needs out of the professional dog house after he's caught twisting the facts of a major story to make it play better. Longo knows this and lures him into his company with the promise of exclusive rights to his story. What Longo gets out of this arrangement is one of the film's central mysteries. True Story is absorbing as long as the film can draw you in with the promise of shocking twists but the more cards the film is forced to turn over the more our interest dissipates. The facts of the case are simply not that compelling and all the intrigue of peeling back the layers of lies nearly distracts us from the fact that we never get much of an answer to who Longo really is and why the crimes were committed.
Goold's direction is polished and gets the job done enough to recommend the film to fans of the true crime genre, but in the end amounts to a missed opportunity. True Story wants to be a Capote where journalist and subject mirror one another and their relationship bleeds outside the lines of the ethical boundaries, but unlike Bennett Miller's film, True Story lets both men off the hook too easily.
Grade B-
Related: James Franco in I Am Michael
Reader Comments (6)
"...we never get much of an answer to who Longo really is and why the crimes were committed."
This part of the review struck me as odd, since it's not actually any big mystery why Christian Longo murdered his family IRL. The guy couldn't handle the shame of his business ventures collapsing so he decided his wife and children were better off dead than discovering that he wasn't who he said he was, because like all self-obsessed sociopaths he never saw people - including Finkel - as anything other than extensions of himself. Did the movie really obfuscate that pretty obvious (well, to me, anyway) motive?
It's an intriguing story, but it's hard for me to imagine two less appealing stars.
how is Felicity?
Suzanne - I second your statement.
Robert - Yes, actually, I would say it did leave his character hazy in the end. True Story does reaches the conclusion the Longo is a really sick guy and you can figure it out from there but nothing as clear as what you just said.
Soja- Felicity is good in her one big scene in the last act where she confronts Longo, but has little to do before then except look concerned