Direction: Harry Wootliff
Country: UK
The toxic relationship depicted in True Things might not be a mind-blowing experience since it was seen many times before, but the up-and-coming director Harry Wootliff’s debut feature makes us expect even better things from him in the future.
The idea of adapting Deborah Kay Davies’ novel came from the Golden Globe-winning actor Ruth Wilson (The Affair TV series, 2014-19; Jane Eyre TV mini series, 2006). Here, she embodies Kate, a lascivious if lonely thirty-something woman living in an existential vacuum. In an instant, a casual sexual episode with a complete stranger (Tom Burke) takes her to a state of ecstasy with the possibility of settling down while being truly loved. In such a way that she may not be able to figure out the obscure intentions of this man and manage to ward off his injurious exploitation.
This mindfulness of doomed romance and life disorientation is very real, and the two aspects are intelligently combined. The pathos and uncertainty are so strong in Kate’s subjugation that we should definitely see this experience as a possibility to grow. And yet, this rather desperate vision of love leads the protagonist to a dangerous abyss. By judging her previous behavior, it’s inevitable to think about the worst.
The film’s soundtrack includes “Rid of Me” by PJ Harvey, which plays in a key moment of the narrative, and we cannot deny the deep involvement of the actors in the job, especially Wilson as an erratic soul craving for love and exhausted by anguish and doubt.
