THE TROUBLE WITH
THE TRUTH
Facets Film Dialogue
with filmmaker Jim Hemphill
Filmmaker Jim Hemphill will be here in person for a Q&A at both screenings on Friday, January 11th, as well as the 3 pm screenings on Saturday & Sunday, January 12 & 13.
THE TROUBLE WITH
THE TRUTH
"Convincing, moving and provocative"
-Variety
"An alive and involving film... an equitable, tender, sometimes surprising game of hard truth-telling"
-Los Angeles Times
"There isn't a false note in either the dialogue or the performances"
-Village Voice
"Director Jim Hemphill's naturalistic dialogue and direction is so unfussy — and, at times, humanly awkward—as to feel a bit like a documentary. Call it mumblecore for grown-ups (i.e., minus the mumbling)"
-New York Post
"Part of the greatness of this film is that it not only avoids any simple answers, but it also takes us into the awkward contradictions and internal dishonesties that help us look at the mirror each day."
-RogerEbert.com
"Engagingly written and well played by both leads... the movie lets one night tell the lifetime story of two people who know each other too well to hide anything"
-TimeOut Chicago
Robert (John Shea) is a middle-aged jazz musician who ekes out a living playing piano in a hotel bar. He is a perpetual "starving artist", but he likes it that way, being able to flirt while living a life of leisure with minimal commitments. When his daughter Jenny (Danielle Harris) tells him that she is engaged, he advises her against getting married, as his own relationship to Jenny's mom Emily (Lea Thompson, Back to the Future, Some Kind of Wonderful) did not last. He does not understand why anyone would want to give up their independence. Yet when Robert and Emily reunite for dinner, it quickly becomes clear that things are more complicated than he believed. They still have feelings for each other, and as the night progresses, begin to wonder if they made a mistake by splitting up, as memories and confessions bring things to the surface. Robert and Emily eventually find that they have a lot of unresolved issues to talk about, which leads to unexpected results. They eventually learn that marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up.
Directed by Jim Hemphill, U.S.A., 2011, 96 mins.
