This film is bad.
This film feels a lot like that year's Spotlight, only with a much worse script and less competent direction. So far as the acting is concerned, where to place the blame is a bit difficult. It just feels awkward sometimes. That awkwardness, though often due to clunky delivery, is largely derived from the dialogue. Vanderbilt doesn't seem to know how to write it. A lot of the double speak Cate Blanchett's character uses to address both her abusive past and her journalistic struggles is heavy handed and obvious. Nothing is subtle. Certain lines are clichéd to the point of being cartoonish ("don't you understand?").
While the dialogue and direction I feel pretty well explains middling performances from competent actors like Blanchett and Redford, sometimes actors are just bad. There's even a bad child actor. Not all children are bad at acting. Some are very good. They are like any other actor and should be judged on more or less the same standard as their adult counterparts. With that in mind, the child actor in Truth is still bad. Like his adult peers it isn't all his fault, some of his lines are just terrible. The bad adult acting suffers the same, though the flat delivery really doesn't help. Flatness is not the only problem though.
Like I alluded to with Blanchett's character's heavy handed double speak, Vanderbilt is not good with subtly. At one point he seems to doubt so much that his audience gets the point that he dedicates a three minute speech to a character basically laying out his political opinion just so we don't miss the point of his two hour movie. It's honestly a little surprising that an experienced screenwriter feels he has to resort to it.
It's not surprising that this is Vanderbilt's directorial debut. While the direction of the actors is generally not the best, most other aspects of the film just go to show his inexperience. There is visually nothing interesting. The cinematography is generally flat and the only variation in shots is how centered or balanced they are, which, given the somewhat stale office setting much of the film takes place in, isn't really that impressive. The lighting, color, and set design are all serviceable, nothing more. There didn't seem to be any thought to having the visuals of the film play any real role in telling the story (There is one shot which does show a power imbalance purely through the way a large number of characters are situated across the protagonist, demonstrating the odds being stacked against her, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this was coincidental given the pattern for the rest of the film).
Given that Vanderbilt has a lot more experience with screen writing than he does directing, it's not surprising that he felt comfortable using spoken word alone to tell this story, but then what's the point in making it into a film? The only other way to really enhance the story through the medium would be with its music. It's too bad then that the score is totally bland and forgettable and is really more working in the background than enhancing or transforming the emotional weight of a given scene.
When this film is not mediocre it is bad. It does almost nothing to utilize the medium of film and makes me question why Vanderbilt didn't just keep to the writing and leave the direction to someone more competent. Maybe if you have strong feelings on Bush you'll find yourself ignoring how bad it is. I think though, if you look at this thing objectively, you'll realize it wasn't worth your time.
This film feels a lot like that year's Spotlight, only with a much worse script and less competent direction. So far as the acting is concerned, where to place the blame is a bit difficult. It just feels awkward sometimes. That awkwardness, though often due to clunky delivery, is largely derived from the dialogue. Vanderbilt doesn't seem to know how to write it. A lot of the double speak Cate Blanchett's character uses to address both her abusive past and her journalistic struggles is heavy handed and obvious. Nothing is subtle. Certain lines are clichéd to the point of being cartoonish ("don't you understand?").
While the dialogue and direction I feel pretty well explains middling performances from competent actors like Blanchett and Redford, sometimes actors are just bad. There's even a bad child actor. Not all children are bad at acting. Some are very good. They are like any other actor and should be judged on more or less the same standard as their adult counterparts. With that in mind, the child actor in Truth is still bad. Like his adult peers it isn't all his fault, some of his lines are just terrible. The bad adult acting suffers the same, though the flat delivery really doesn't help. Flatness is not the only problem though.
Like I alluded to with Blanchett's character's heavy handed double speak, Vanderbilt is not good with subtly. At one point he seems to doubt so much that his audience gets the point that he dedicates a three minute speech to a character basically laying out his political opinion just so we don't miss the point of his two hour movie. It's honestly a little surprising that an experienced screenwriter feels he has to resort to it.
It's not surprising that this is Vanderbilt's directorial debut. While the direction of the actors is generally not the best, most other aspects of the film just go to show his inexperience. There is visually nothing interesting. The cinematography is generally flat and the only variation in shots is how centered or balanced they are, which, given the somewhat stale office setting much of the film takes place in, isn't really that impressive. The lighting, color, and set design are all serviceable, nothing more. There didn't seem to be any thought to having the visuals of the film play any real role in telling the story (There is one shot which does show a power imbalance purely through the way a large number of characters are situated across the protagonist, demonstrating the odds being stacked against her, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this was coincidental given the pattern for the rest of the film).
Given that Vanderbilt has a lot more experience with screen writing than he does directing, it's not surprising that he felt comfortable using spoken word alone to tell this story, but then what's the point in making it into a film? The only other way to really enhance the story through the medium would be with its music. It's too bad then that the score is totally bland and forgettable and is really more working in the background than enhancing or transforming the emotional weight of a given scene.
When this film is not mediocre it is bad. It does almost nothing to utilize the medium of film and makes me question why Vanderbilt didn't just keep to the writing and leave the direction to someone more competent. Maybe if you have strong feelings on Bush you'll find yourself ignoring how bad it is. I think though, if you look at this thing objectively, you'll realize it wasn't worth your time.