Critic Reviews

Deneuve has fun with her best role in years.

Starring two grande dames of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, The Truth is a mistress-class in the art of French close-up acting, from the twitch of a dismissive eyebrow to a pout of disappointment.

Kore-eda’s first film made outside his native Japan, it’s a fascinating exploration of the fallibility of memory and of how the truths we tell ourselves so frequently outweigh an empirical certainty.

Kore-eda furthers his storied reputation as an artist humanely attuned to what transpires between those who know each other all too well.

Funny, wry, emotionally potent, and like most films by Hirokazu Kore -eda (“Shoplifters,” “Nobody Knows,” “After Life”) operates on multiple levels—usually some kind of domestic tragicomedy under which lies profound existential disquiet.

The Truth doesn’t have very much of a plot. What little there is serves as a clothesline for its two excellent leads to hang their performances out to dry.

Using compassion and the slightest touch of syrup, Kore-eda brings his characters to a place where they realize with shock that they’re finally on the same page.

Playing an aging star estranged from her daughter might not seem like a major stretch, but Deneuve and Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda (whose "Shoplifters" took top honors at the Cannes Film Festival) spin that premise into a cinematic breath of fresh air.

This wise and diaphanous little drama finds Kore-eda once again exploring his usual obsessions, as the man behind the likes of “Still Walking” and “After the Storm” offers yet another insightful look at the underlying fabric of a modern family.

Because if anyone can handle The Truth, it's Deneuve. The French icon is as magnetic as ever, and she inhabits Fabienne (which is, incidentally, her own middle name) effortlessly, with a sly self-awareness that never undermines the fiction.