True Love (2007) Reviews

• Powerful, intense relationship film

  Sjhm2012-01-15

  I love this film. Power, intensity, adult relationships, pulling no punches. No hearts and flowers (okay a bunch of flowers crop up once), but this is what it is all about. No relationship is perfect, you have to work at love, things happen, stuff crops up, all sorts of things put a strain on a relationship and it is how you work through it that counts. And yes, men and women do look for love in all the wrong places, and sometimes evolution is forced upon them by circumstances. This film has a rhythm all its own. The central performance, by Val Lauren, is mind blowing. Complex, intelligent, lonely, self-reliant, self-destructive, Max powers through the story like a threshing machine. When he's up and happy, life is a blast, when his world turns in on itself, it's more of a two by four through the windscreen. For all of his anger and explosive rage you get the sense that he's fundamentally a decent guy, marching to the beat of his own drum. Suzy Cote, is his perfect foil as Betty, the performance artist whose moment of over-stepping the bounds spins Max off into self-destruct. From the young woman in limbo because her husband wants a divorce, to the married couple struggling through IVF and losing their way, this captures the mess and muddle of adult life and the difficulties of making lifelong connections in a modern context. Brilliant, emotional, intelligent, with a golden ear for naturalistic dialogue, Henry Barrial as writer and director hits all the right notes. For those of us who tire easily of the saccharine, Disney-style, pastel offerings that normally constitute "true love", this is a truly unmissable film.

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