The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie Review

An improbable comedy.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 14, 2013

One of the most intriguing aspects of being a parent is seeing what kind of romantic entanglements your children experience. When I was in my twenties, I had a rather exotic girlfriend who was several years my senior and who just so happened to be a French Moroccan woman who made her living as a belly dancer. When I took this woman to meet my parents at a family reunion and she came in her belly dancing attire and performed for my assorted relatives, I had never seen such a combination of shock and pride in my father’s eyes. Now I’m on the other side of that equation as my own boys are beginning to branch out into girlfriend territory and it’s been an object lesson in knowing when to keep my big trap shut (not always an easy task). That “knowing when to say something” issue is just one of many tightropes that any parent reading this has no doubt attempted to navigate themselves. You obviously want your children to do well and to hopefully avoid any mistakes that you yourself have made, but at the same time you come to the realization that your kids have their own lives to lead and that sometimes your intrusions are not only unwelcome, they’re actually downright harmful at times, fostering resentment and pushing kids to do the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. One of the most believable elements in The Unbelievable Truth is the desperate attempt the heroine’s father makes to assure his daughter’s success in life. Audry (Adrienne Shelley) is a young woman with seemingly everything going for her. She’s smart (accepted to Harvard, no less), beautiful (she takes a job as a lingerie model during the film) but, as indicated by a perhaps obsessive fear of nuclear annihilation, not especially well adjusted to the vagaries of life. She even has a perfectly acceptable boyfriend, one particularly well attuned to the “greed is good” ethos of the late eighties, but like the invitation to the Ivy League which Audry declines, the thought of ending up with this guy proves to be another debilitating factor for the girl, one which only seems more problematic once a bad boy loner, an ex-con named Josh (Robert Burke), wanders into town, meets Audry at a second hand store and then gets a job at Audry’s father’s body shop.

Hal Hartley’s films often seem to be about one thing while they at least hint at other subjects. The same may be true of The Unbelievable Truth as well. While the film would on its surface appear to be solely about the kind of weird relationship between Audry and Josh, there are a number of other equally bizarre little elements running throughout the film that may indicate that Hartley had a more broad reaching form of social criticism on his mind. Note, for example, the recurrent issue of money and status, not to mention the segue that initially joins Josh and Audry together, an edit which is accomplished by focusing first on the statue of George Washington on Wall Street, where Josh is, and then on a large mural of Washington that adorns Audry’s wall in her suburban bedroom.

Whatever Hartley’s ultimate aims (which may in fact be debatable), The Unbelievable Truth has the same sort of deadpan humor running rampant through it that occurs in several of the writer-director’s other efforts. People keep asking Josh if he’s a priest, since he favors black apparel, to which he invariably replies, “No, I’m a mechanic”. After Josh and Audry start their faltering relationship, a local waitress (played by a gum chomping Edie Falco) tries to put the moves on Josh herself in a scene that is like a mini-Groundhog Day, with the same snippets of dialogue repeating over and over. Hartley’s comedic sense is a decidedly acquired taste, but for those who are attuned to it, there are some good, albeit admittedly fairly gentle, laughs to be had in this film. There's even humor to be found in one of the main reasons that Audry's father is adamant that his daughter not get involved with Josh. Josh has done time for the murder of the father of one of Audry's friends, though in the gossip prone ways of the townspeople, his crime has morphed into serial killer territory that would make Ted Bundy seem like an amateur. (It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Hartley cheats even this premise, delivering a bit of vindication for Josh late in the film.)

What tends to hobble this effort is a certain amateurish quality which undercuts its earnest demeanor. This was a first film for many of the participants, and it frankly shows. While Shelly and Burke do extremely well with their roles, some of the supporting players, probably most notably Christopher Cooke as Audry’s apopleptic father, are too over the top for the film’s otherwise strangely tamped down ambience. The film also perhaps suffers from its overly “arty” approach, notably Audry’s obsession with nuclear holocaust, something that colors large swaths of the film and leads to a kind of wacky conclusion. Other elements, though, work marvelously, including another interest of Audry’s—French farce, as indicated by her reading of Molier’s The Misanthrope. Hartley completely deconstructs the typical farce trope of slamming doors late in the film as most of the major characters tiptoe through a house quietly opening doors and peeking through windows as they all attempt to evade being seen by the others. It’s in small moments like these that Hartley finds his most distinctive voice and proves what a worthwhile voice it is.

The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Unbelievable Truth is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This early Hartley effort wasn't just shot on a shoestring budget, it was shot on a veritable aglet budget, and so the surprising thing is how polished so much of the film looks, especially in this solid high definition presentation. Colors are somewhat muted but generally accurate looking and fine detail is quite admirable throughout the film. There are some contrast issues that crop up occasionally (note the first bar scene when the camera pans to the left when suddenly there's a kind of weird purple haze around the characters), but these are relatively minor anomalies overall.

The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Unbelievable Truth features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that serves the film's pretty small scale sonic ambitions perfectly well. The bulk of this film consists of dialogue scenes, either monologues or between two people, without even a glut of ambient environmental effects to provide much depth. There are some nice effects, however, notably in the nice opening sequence where the wind is whipping through some foliage, or some of the seaside scenes later in the film. Fidelity is fine with no damage to report.

The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Unbelievable Truth and its Consequences (480p; 17:35) is a nice little retrospective with the principal cast and Hartley looking back on the production.


• Opera No. 1 (480i; 8:20) is a fun musical short by Hartley with a young Parker Posey.

The Unbelievable Truth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Unbelievable Truth finds its filmmaker and cast doing rather remarkable work considering this was such an early effort for so many of them. The film doesn't quite gel, and is a bit too pretentious for its own good, but there's a lot of nicely down low key humor here that will appeal to most Hartley fans. This Blu-ray offers very good video and audio and it comes with a couple of appealing supplements. Recommended.