The Whole Truth

That this thai horror movie is just too slow and brittle and lacks greatly experience among the youngest actors. Its a peel of the layers of the onion kinda developing story, a story that is good, but knit together in an awkward manner, and there are obvious plotholes in the continuity. Allthough the playtime is 20 minutes too long the surprises though are still there for you to come and see

a six stars from the grumpy old man still not struck by the green or grey stare and recommends.

It starts mid-paced, mediocre, middle-of-the-road, like a harmless melodrama. Don't be fooled by the seemingly "storm in the teacup" style and scope. There are heaps of clues along the way. Some of them indicative, some misleading. Then, as the plot thickens, twists and turns explode one after another. The excellent execution of the story presents every twist and turn with explanation, all reasonable. Well done, director Wisit Sasanatieng.

Every characters other than the protagonists sis and bro look nice and give good first impression. However, they have dark side of their own, as revealed later. The exception: only 3 persons (the school bully, the rich youngster, and the futile husband) NOT look nice when first appeared, because the director portrays them that way, are not that bad as we anticipate. The most ugly of them all, is actually pure and innocent. These delicate arrangements are perfect embodiment of the idea that in our world it's hard to realize the whole truth, unless through a (worm)hole, of a past or even present event. Hence the title of THE WH⭕LE TRUTH (2021).

By the way, TWT is typically Thai cinema and a beautiful one. Asian horror movies tend to, IMHO, pay more attention on family value, good manner, morality, etc or even on introspection of their culture/tradition than the actual scary stuff. Therefore, TWT won't keep you at the edge of your seat. It doesn't intend to. Please look away if you prefer mindless killing, jump scare or gore.

If towards the beginning you have a Deja Vu and think this feels familiar ... like a movie you may have seen before. You may think like me and feel this is close to an M. Night Shyamalan movie that also had grandparents in the middle of the story. Not sure if I want to say don't worry about it, it is not a remake of that ... it just isn't though.

This is a simple or rather quite straight horror ... it does contain a few other elements (like bullying) and general issues growing up and the age differences between the kids and the grandparents ... different worlds and all that. Not perfect by a long shot, but horror fans may not mind while they are getting their kicks ...

I kept waiting for some sort of payoff. You never get one. It drags on for way to long. The pacing is terrible, the subplot with Pim pointless and goes nowhere. I got so tired of Putt's name with being half the dialogue in this movie. This movie thought it was being a lot more than it was. It was grim. So disturbing. Horrible special effects. And just overall a sad film achieving nothing. And it got really boring. Like really boring. Nobody was particularly likeable except maybe Pim, kinda. But remember this movie is Thai, which so far as I know, is not a thriving hot spot for cinema. So with that in mind, I can be forgiving.

It may lack the horror that some contributors enjoy but this is more a murder mystery than a horror flick. The actors are totally unknown to most western audiences so you don't know who is going to live or die. The cinematography is very good although the special effects could have been better with a little more money spent on them but that's a small complaint. It didn't take away from the overall film. Some may find it slow at times as it's trying to build up the tension. Stay until the last few minutes at the end. It's worth it.