Now comes True Story, starring Jonah Hill and James Franco. It is based on a book called True Story, a memoir by Michael Finkel. The film, adapted for screen and directed by Rupert Goold, ignores any actual investigation of truth. It is instead a character-based competition between a disgraced journalist and an accused murderer who are looking to use each other for their own advantage.
The two men at the center of True Story are Michael Finkel and Christian Longo. As the film opens, Finkel (Jonah Hill) is a hot-shot young journalist working for the New York Times. He’s finishing up a story on child slavery in Africa, his 10th cover story in 3 years. He’s self-assured and cocky (“It’s okay,” he tells a nervous source while in the field, “I work for the New York Times”), until his editors discover his story is not, strictly speaking, true. He’s taken the stories of many child slaves and attributed them to a single boy. “I did the best with what I had,” he tells the Times. “You lied,” his editor replies, before firing him and banishing him to the terrible fate of having to live with his girlfriend (Felicity Jones) in Bozeman, Montana.
In Oregon, Christian Longo (James Franco) has been arrested for murdering his wife and his three small children. After allegedly killing his family, Longo fled to Mexico and took up the name and identity of New York Times writer Michael Finkel. Longo is quiet and removed, a model prisoner as he awaits his trial. Eventually, Finkel hears about the murderer who assumed his identity, and curious (and more than a little flattered) he drives out to Oregon to meet Longo, and perhaps restore his name with a great story.
The two men meet; they make a deal: If Finkel will teach Longo how to write, Longo will give Finkel unrestricted access to his story, as long as Finkel does not reveal anything until after the trial.
That’s a pretty solid setup for a thrilling cat-and-mouse true crime film, between a killer who wants to be free and a journalist trying to get to the bottom of the story. It’s just not what this movie is. And, at the risk of disparaging one movie for not being another movie, True Story has many better movies in its bones.
The most interesting questions about these events are given, at best, cursory interest. Who was Christian Longo? Why did he kill his wife and children? Why does Michael Finkel believe Longo at all? These questions don’t all need answers, but they are the kind of questions which interest audiences.
But this is not a murder mystery. It’s not a story about an intrepid journalist digging for the truth. It aspires towards the best of those, and has bits of many in its construction, including Capote, Primal Fear, and Silence of the Lambs (comparing Franco and Hill to Foster and Hopkins feels almost blasphemous, but it’s an image drawn on repeatedly). It’s also not hard to see David Fincher’s work, Zodiac or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in the thematic elements that interest Goold. But Goold lacks the storytelling power and the heft of vision of Fincher to lift his interesting concept a higher level.
Instead, after a solid set-up, the movie becomes a pretty dull affair. Were these men portrayed as sharper participants in a game of consequence, then the outcome might have carried greater effect. But as it stands, Longo sleepwalks through his half-witted story, and Finkel is gullible enough to believe it.
Meanwhile, the smart people in this story get too little screen-time. Those characters, like the local reporter who tips off Finkel about the whole Longo affair (Ethan Suplee), or the detective on the case (Robert John Burke) trying to get Finkel’s cooperation, bring life to the film in the few chances they get. When Suplee hears that Finkel is writing a book that questions Longo’s guilt, he tells Finkel: “I’m not sure Christian Longo deserves to have his story told.” That’s an interesting statement, but the best Finkel can do is respond with platitudinous soundbites (“everyone deserves to have their story heard”).
The same problem goes for Felicity Jones, who is criminally under-used in this film. She plays Finkel’s partner, an academic who seems skeptical of Finkel’s interest in Longo, but for most of the film simply lingers in the background of her husband’s story. She has very little to do, but is rewarded for her patience with the film’s best scene.
Still, this movie almost makes it work. A few more difficult choices from Goold could have made True Story a solid film about truth and our aversion to it. But as it stands, it isn’t. The audience is not left toiling over hard questions. The trauma of the murder of children is not felt but exploited. And the participants (and actors) in this face-off are not smart or shrewd enough to outlast their movie.
