True Story

When the editors of The New York Times discovered that investigative journalist Michael Finkel had tinkered with the truth when he filed a report of modern day slavery in Africa they promptly fired him. Licking his wounds back home in Montana the disgraced reporter tried to kickstart his stalled career but he was shunned by everyone, except his unswerving loyal wife.

Then one day out of the blue Finkel received a phone call from a local newspaperman who alerted him to the fact that when an accused murderer on the run was finally caught down in Mexico, the authorities discovered that the man had been using Finkel’s identity. The news triggers off a light bulb in the journalist’s mind who thinks that not only is there possibly be a big story here, but it could be the ver thing he needed to help redeem his shattered reputation.

When Finkel meets the man … Christian Longo …. in jail awaiting his Trial, he strikes up a bargain with him.  Longo, who implies he is innocent, will tell the truth exclusively to Finkel to be published when the case is settled, on condition that he teaches him how to become a writer.

Finkel takes the bait, gets himself a lucrative book deal on the basis of it, and starts to get the story down on paper. The trouble is, the more immersed he is in the project, the more he realizes that what Longo is feeding him is edited highlights of his story and that he is obviously holding back on some of the more essential parts of the tale.  There is also the question of exactly how much is really true, and is in fact Longo even innocent after all.  Whilst this is all completely absorbing a rather obsessed and troubled Finkel, his wife is feeling ignored, and in a very odd scene which made little sense, is seen reaching out to Longo for sympathy via the phone.

Written and directed by British stage director Rupert  Goold and based on Finkel’s own self-serving memoir the movie’s pre-occupation with the ‘truth’ makes it all rather too slow paced and even boring at times. Too much of the ‘action’ takes place with just the two men facing each other across a table in the jail which is hard to make compelling viewing even at the best of times. Longo is played by James Franco who loves to play complex edgy characters, even though he doesn’t always succeed in making them that believable. Opposite him as Finkel was the charming young and rather earnest Jonah Hill who was hopelessly miscast as the determined investigator desperate for a Pulitzer but meanwhile would just settle for another job.  Poor Felicity Jones cast as Mrs Finkel had little to do beyond pout and play the piano

True Story is based on a real true story.  It just turns out it was not an interesting one after all.