The Truth (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Truth (2019) – H. Kore-eda

With his follow-up to Cannes winner Shoplifters (2018), Hirokazu Kore-eda chose to film in France with Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche (and also Ethan Hawke).  True to form, it’s a family drama, although it also belongs to that well-trodden genre of films about film-making. Deneuve plays a grande dame of French cinema (an easy role for her, no doubt) but also egoistic, bitchy, and perhaps deep down insecure about getting older and losing her touch.  She's just published her memoirs (which might not be entirely truthful). Binoche plays her daughter, visiting from New York where she is a screenwriter and married to TV actor Hawke; they bring their young daughter who doesn’t remember her grandmother. Binoche harbours a lifetime of hurt, from perceived neglect by her mother (who chose to focus on acting over family). A lot of the film is spent on a set, where Deneuve is acting in a science fiction film about a daughter (Deneuve but also Ludivine Sagnier) who ages even while her mother stays young (a conceit involving living in outer space). Some emotional tension arises because the actress playing the mother (Manon Clavel) is known for her resemblance to one of Deneuve’s rivals (long since passed away) who was also a surrogate mother to Binoche.  As the film within a film is also about mother-daughter relationships, there are a lot of ripples in this pond (with the moral being that truth is a subjective affair).  And, as in his other films, Kore-eda manages to unfold events without clichés, gently observing his characters as they renew their feelings for each other. Perhaps things do feel a bit forced into a happy ending as the film winds down, but this is still both a consistent outing from the Japanese master and somehow also a classic French drama.