Kate’s life could not be more monotonous. She lives alone in the English seaside town where she grew up, and her parents worry she has no future. Not only is Kate single while pushing 40, but she also works a dead-end government job that could probably be performed by anyone. In other words, she is ready to overreact when someone shows her a modicum of attention. True Things, the new psychological drama from director Harry Wootliff, follows Kate’s overreaction until she finds herself in a tailspin of self-destruction. Well-acted and astute, this is the sort of film whose good intentions cannot overcome a fundamental misstep. Kate is miscast.
After getting the rights to the source material, a novel by Deborah Kay Davies, Ruth Wilson produced True Things and cast herself in the lead role. A provocative juxtaposition puts us in her mindset: the first image of the film is a fantasy sequence, one where an anonymous man goes down on Kate in a sun-drenched beach setting. This is the stuff of passionate romance novels, which helps establish Kate’s life – small, anonymous, maybe pathetic – is missing something fundamental. Her government job involves helping people get the assistance they need, usually through introductory interviews, and one day a man (Tom Burke) sits across from Kate’s desk and regards her with lust. With bleached blond hair and an earring, he seems like a bad boy, so Kate cannot resist his advances. Before the end of the day, they have a sexual encounter in the parking lot.
The tension of True Things involves Kate’s internality, namely how her good sense collides with her desire. She senses this man, known in the film as Blond, is probably no good for her. But he says the right things, tantalizing her with the possibility of a future. This stretch of the film is both relatable and frustrating because we see how and why Kate ignores all the warning signs, like Blond’s aloof nature and his uncanny ability to take her possessions. This is the stuff of teenage romance, except among people with life experience and pushing middle age, so the stakes are higher (no matter how much Kate wants to ignore them). Wootliff is ruthless in her willingness to show the soul-crushing mundanity of Kate’s life, although Blond also awakens a dangerous streak. When Kate goes on a blind date with another man, ordinary and handsome, it ends badly because she wants to fool around in the car and he’s too sensible for that.
The bad first date is one of many scenes where miscasting gets in the way of plausibility. Quite simply, Wilson is too attractive to play Kate. In fact, she is arguably one of the most beautiful women in the world, to the point that her earlier, mousier demeanor is unconvincing. It is easy to see what attracted Wilson to the source material: this is a complex role, one that shows a modern woman who struggles to temper her needs against what is expected of her, but I suspect most readers of Davies’ novel did not conjure someone like Wilson in their mind’s eye. Most of the time, it is easy to suspend disbelief in this matter, except in scenes like the blind date because Wilson as Kate is sexy, not desperate. The man’s rebuff more of a plot requirement, not an ordinary human impulse (even sensible men have lust).
Wilson is more convincing in her scenes alone with Burke because Blond is clearly manipulating Kate, and she lets herself go along with it. Like in Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, Burke has a kind of oily charisma that makes an outsider wonder how he can have that effect on others. Then again, he has the transactional power of a con man: she makes poor decisions because, through his initial breach of good sense and tact, she has the bravado to do so. As the film continues and Kate’s life unravels, leading her to collapsing on her living room rug in abject self-loathing, Wilson is more convincing because consequences catch up with her. The central tension is whether Kate can find the confidence to recognize she deserves better, and we’re not sure that is possible because the film has put us through a pitiless ringer.
Since Kate’s trajectory is already easy to guess, True Things ends on a note that is a touch too predictable. Like Claire Denis’ Beau Travail, Wootliff uses her protagonist dancing alone in a nightclub to serve as symbol for her inner turmoil, with PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me” replacing Corona’s “The Rhythm of the Night.” Whereas Denis’ film is mercurial and rigorous, the ultimate “lean in” feminism of True Things is more a letdown. Kate finally internalizes what everyone but Blond could see along, which means that maybe her next blind date will end with physical desire, and an emotional connection, too. At least, that’s what the film wants, as that gambit repeatedly requires us – over and over again – to not quite believe our eyes.
Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
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