After New York Times reporter Mike Finkel (Jonah Hill) is ousted for fabricating aspects of a high-profile story, he despairs of ever working as an investigative journalist again. His worry turns out to be premature. Recently, a notorious accused murderer named Christian Longo (James Franco) has, unbeknownst to Finkel, used the reporter’s identity during his brief flight from justice. This eccentric lie understandably catches the disgraced journalist’s attention, and he writes to the captured Longo, who consents to a series of interviews as he awaits trial in an Oregon jail for the brutal slaying of his wife and three children. Longo is evasive about the crime in question, but he acknowledges that his life has been a succession of mistakes. Smelling a book deal (and possible public redemption), Finkel digs into the inmate’s story with more passion that is warranted by mere journalistic curiosity.
The new film True Story, adapted from Finkel’s memoir of the same name, depicts the symbiotic and often fraught relationship between these two men. Rupert Goold, directing his first feature film, gives the tale an appropriate veneer of wintery severity, and sneaks in some visually bracing sequences into a feature that is (perhaps necessarily) thick with dialog delivered in humdrum shot-reverse-shot close-ups. The film’s eagerness to underline the affinities between Finkel and Longo is a bit gawky and eye-rolling at times—Franco at one point makes a trite “We’re the same, you and I” declaration. Fortunately the excellent, scrupulous lead performances salvage True Story from its own ham-fistedness. Hill is in fine, anguished form, and Franco achieves an unnerving gestalt of affability, self-effacement, and reptilian inscrutability. Meanwhile, Felicity Jones lends gravity to Finkel’s wife Jill, a role that serves little dramatic function, but provides a crucial secondary perspective on the reporter’s obsessions and Longo’s uncanny magnetism.
True Story opens Friday, April 17 at Plaza Frontenac Cinemas, 1701 S. Lindberg.
