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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Salesrank: 72708
Released: March 13, 2001 |
| Our Price: $68.95 |
| Used Price: $34.95 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The films of Hal Hartley, New York's modern beatnik cinema laureate, are not for everyone. His self-consciously clever ping-pong dialogue sounds like a cross between song lyrics and Samuel Beckett, while his deadpan direction gives a wry cast to it all. It's romantic comedy skewed through a thoroughly modern perspective, and it sprung fully formed in his debut feature. Gloomy redheaded pixie Adrienne Shelly, a neurotic high school student fixated on doomsday scenarios, falls for the tall, dark, and mysterious Robert Burke, a black-clad, philosophy-spouting mechanic who is constantly mistaken for a priest and rumored to be a convicted murderer.
An enigmatic, intellectually playful farce played with ironic understatement, Hartley's austere film was shot on the cheap with a handsome, restrained style and directed with an approach straddling verbal slapstick and modernist irony. Shelly mixes the goofy, obsessive distractions of a screwball heroine with smarts, determination, and hardball negotiating skills, while Burke's quiet calm and confidence radiates warmth and sincerity even while playing the loner. Hartley explores the line between truth and rumor, and he takes satirical swipes at the culture of cash and contracts--yet for all his irony he remains an optimist. For all its hip '90s attitude, the unbelievable truth is that Hartley is a romantic at heart. --Sean Axmaker
The Unbelievable Truth Reviews:
A guilty pleasure 
2009-08-31 - I'm usually a pretty hard-line guy when it comes to movies. I'm the type who likes foreign films and classics and cerebral character dramas. The Unbelievable Truth is much lighter fare than that. Looking at this movie analytically, I can't exactly say it's such a great movie. But for whatever inexplicable reasons, I find it highly enjoyable.
This movie doesn't have the exciting plot. Most of the plot events are actually pretty mundane everyday slice-of-life events of ordinary people's lives. But there is something about the texture of this movie that is appealing in a unique sort of way. I just like being in the space of this movie.
It takes place in what appears to be a small town where everyone has known everyone else for a long time. It's not sweet or bucolic like the Andy Griffith Show. But people are connected in homey but believable way. Yet there's just enough of a touch of eccentricity to make it fresh and unusual. The two main characters are a cute teenage girl obsessed with nuclear war, and an ex-convict who is soft spoken and cerebral whom everyone in town describes as "like a priest or something." It has an appealing musical score that I can't get out of my head. This isn't a laugh-out-loud sort of comedy, but it does have a humorous tone.
Yet beneath all this, there is a subtext of developing ideas for the cerebrally adventurous. It contemplates the nature of money. The practice of making deals, of bartering one good for another and what that role that practice plays in life, is a recurring theme in the movie. Is life just a series of deals to gain assurances that certain things will be delivered? Or is there a point where one must accept that there is no certainty and have some faith?
No doubt, many who watch this movie will wonder where on earth I'm getting that. They'll watch it and see only a cute quirky inconsequential comdey. But for cerebral perceptive viewers, you'll find something here to chew on.
I always appreciate some info about sensitivity myself, so I'll give some here. Unfortunately, there is some excess profanity that for my taste was unnecessary and didn't match the tone of the film. Though there are a couple of mentions of sex, there are no sexual encounters at all in this movie. There is no violence.
I have to give this only 3 stars because much of it pretty lightweight stuff, and not the strongest plot in the world. This is not monumental drama. But in terms of pure enjoyment, I'd probably be more like a 4½ star movie for me. It's atypical for what I usually like.
Extremely funny 80's the world is going to end kitsch! 
2007-01-11 - The characters are bright and full and the dialogue is fresh and funny. Enjoy!
RIP Adrienne Shelly 
2006-11-10 - I was saddened to hear of the tragic and senseless passing of the beautiful actress Adrienne Shelly. Nobody can watch Hal Hartley's "The Unbelievable Truth" and not be struck by how talented and engaging Shelly comes across onscreen. At the time of the film's release it seemed as if she was a star in the making. However, she seemed more content to stick with modest indie films and sporadic appearances in acclaimed TV shows rather than become a fixture in vapid Hollywood product that would have increased her exposure. Eventually she moved behind the lens for what was shaping up to be a very interesting directorial career. Sadly, we will no longer be able to witness her growth as an artist, but as a small consolation we still have films like "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Trust" to remind us of her once luminous presence.
where is trust????
2005-04-15 - i agree with chad taylor! there must be a really good reason
why the movie TRUST has not been released on dvd...when i need
a fix i have to dust off the vcr---that should be illegal.
Must be good movie
2004-11-15 - I haven't seen this movie yet, but where is TRUST? Who can forget that movie and the dialogue and the plot and the memorable music? For heaven's sakes, why isn't this out on DVD? Amazon, read this...Trust, by Hal Hartley
