[FILM]
TRUE THINGS
Blond (Tom Burke) — how did he get that name? — with Kate (Ruth Wilson).
★★★
OUT 1 APRIL
CERT TBC / 102 MINS
DIRECTOR Harry Wootliff
CAST Ruth Wilson, Tom Burke, Hayley Squires
PLOT Thirtysomething Kate (Wilson) works in a dull-as-dishwater benefits office with a string of failed attempts at relationships behind her. Things begin to look up when Blond (Burke) rocks up to her desk and asks her to lunch. Despite knowing that dating a claimant is a sackable offence, Kate is besotted. The same can’t be said for Blond.
TRUE THINGS TELLS a sadly familiar tale. Girl meets boy. Boy turns out to be a mendacious bellend. Girl sticks around. Harry Wootliff ’s second feature lacks the emotional oomph of her debut, Only You, but delivers an imaginatively shot, well-played, low-energy character-study of a woman struggling to find the things (career, partner, kids) that seem to come so easily to others. Skewering Instagram-style lifeidealisation, Wootliff ’s non-judgmental film posits the opposite of #relationshipgoals but without having anything really new to say about contemporary gender dynamics.