"Truth"

Title: Truth
Director: James Vanderbilt
Writer: James Vanderbilt, Mary Mapes (book)
Category: Biography, Drama
Duration: 121 min
Rate: 

This year at the London Film Festival, organised by the BFI, biographies were really a popular and successful category. Each film had a different approach to tell real life events that involved real people, but they all decided to dramatise these true stories to make them more entertaining and appealing to the audience.

This is the case for Truth, the adaptation of Mary Mapes' biography Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power, published in 2005.
The film, as well as the book, focuses on the Killian documents controversy obviously told from Mary's perspective. 

The famous American scandal at the centre of Truth resolves around George W Bush's military career and how Mary Mapes tried to unveil the truth on the soon to be reelected president.

After receiving compromising documents that supported her allegation, Mary Mapes produced her60 minutes Wednesday segment presented by the acclaimed Dan Rather. 

However, after airing the program, the CBS started receiving backlash from viewers and "experts" attesting that the documents, verified under a tight deadline, were not authentic and those were just week allegations against an honorable man who served his country.

Throughout the film, Mapes and Rather fight against their broadcasting network and everyone to let the truth come out. They will risk it all and their insufferable quest to unveil the truth will jeopardize their career. However, both Mary and Dan Rather are ready to give up everything for the sake of ethic and the thrill to uncover a story never told before.

For such a demanding plot, and one about fairly recent events that involve a well known and powerful figure in the American politic life,

Truth is a movie that needs a cast that is able to passionately deliver a well written story. Fortunately Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Dannis Quaid and Elisabeth Moss were able to understand the story completely and deliver a masterful performance.

Cate Blanchett shines as Mary Mapes. This character gave her the chance to tackle all the emotional spectrum. Mapes in the film is hell bent to tell the truth, she is a strong and unapologetic woman who does her job well and doesn't accept anything short of perfection. Cate Blanchett takes this challenge with grace and strength delivering  a powerful performance that gives her character justice.

Mary's relationship of mutual respect with Dan Rather is portrayed believably thanks to Robert Redford's serious commitment to his role as the famous anchorman. Their performances are complemented by the rest of the cast who worked hard to bring under a new and almost truthful light this real story.

The main topic in the movie is finding and exposing the truth and how far all the people involved are willing to go to make it happen. In fact, while the whole investigation was focused on ridiculing both Mapes and Rather by continuously referring to the fact that the documents uncovered weren't original and therefore couldn't be authenticated or confirmed to be used as proof, the producer wanted to keep her integrity and tell the truth to show America what kind of person they were voting for, instead of covering up everything for the sake of appearances. In the screenplay is highlighted with brilliant, sarcastic and articulated dialogues how Mapes and her team want to show that with the investigation, they are just trying to miscredit them to shift the attention from the real news in order to cover the truth.

The cinematography is linear and it follows the timeline in a schematic way, almost resembling a forensic analysis of the story. All the facts are laid out clearly and nothing is left out. The rhythm is fast pieced but controlled in order to make it possible for the audience to follow the story, filled with a great amount of information, without getting lost.
All in all Truth is a well made movie that narrates an important piece of the American political history without boring the audience. On the contrary, it makes it possible for the viewers to connect and be engaged with it while being entertained.

Till next time,

Fred.

Truth will be released on March 4th in the UK.

Here's the trailer: