L'incroyable vérité

What we have here is an indie romantic comedy, adorably done. Adrienne Shelly, who is petite and cute and pale as winter snow, stars as Audrey Hugo, a mechanic's daughter who has been accepted at Harvard (or so she says) but has no intention of going. She is obsessed with what she sees as the inevitability of nuclear war and attendant horrors, which she reads about aloud to herself and anyone who will listen.

It is 1988 and this is Long Island, New York, although it looks a lot like Jersey to me. Certainly this is not the high rent district of Long Island. Her boyfriend is shallow and doesn't listen to her. Her father thinks she ought to go to the local community college which he notes is a whole lot cheaper than Harvard. She is bored with her senior year at high school and usually cuts.

Enter tall, handsome, dressed all in black Robert Burke as Josh Hutton just released from prison. People who meet him ask, "Are you a priest?" He answers, "I'm a mechanic." And indeed he is an especially wondrous one who, of course, goes to work for Audrey's father, Vic Hugo (Chris Cooke) and becomes invaluable. Although it seems that Josh killed a girl and then the girl's father some years ago, we of course know from the title and from Josh's obviously sterling character that the "unbelievable truth" must be otherwise. And of course so does Audrey who is immediately smitten with him. But Josh is apparently practicing something like celibacy ("Are you a priest?") and rebuffs Audrey's advances, thereby initiating a whole slew of romantic misunderstandings wittily tossed about by director Hal Hartley along with some spiffy Mamet-like dialogue.

Now enter a photographer who makes Audrey into a fashion model, first her feet, but eventually the entire petite torso. Physically she moves to New York City, but her heart is still with Josh at her dad's auto repair shop. She even carries Josh's wrench in her handbag, with which she threatens the photo guy when he tries to get too close.

What makes this film a delight in spite of all the obvious elements and the predictable complications is the original, independent and sparkling character of Audrey, the true blue integrity of Josh, some clever and funny dialogue, and a kind of warm puppy feel usually the signature property of a Nora Ephron film starring Meg Ryan.

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New York kooky indie-moviemaker Hal Hartley's feature debut, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH tantalizes a somewhat morbid idea that can a reformed manslaughter-convicted ex-con gets a second chance in his hometown where the crime was perpetrated? Freshly out of prison, Josh (Burke) returns to Long Island where his felony has been disproportionately mythologized, he impresses auto-repair shop owner Vic Hugo (Cooke, enjoy some unorthodox outpourings that are rarely seen in a materialistic father) with his autodidactic mechanic skill, therefore he is hired.

Meanwhile, Vic's teenage daughter Audry (Shelly, in her film debut), saturated in her own teen angst, becomes world-weary with nuclear-induced eschatology, she dumps her obsessive boyfriend Emmet (Sauer) and in turn, takes a shine to the reticent Josh, only the latter chooses to suppress his reciprocal feelings and cautiously declines her advancement, clearly learning from his past misdeeds, Josh's celibate stoicism and dark get-up frequently prompts a question from strangers "are you a priest?".

A rebellious and disgruntled Audry procrastinates her college education and takes a bash at modeling, and soon becomes the talk of the small community as she starts to bare all in the magazine spreads. So what does it take to bring the two drifting-apart lovebirds together? The titular "truth" becomes an operative ice-breaker when the manslaughter myth comes clean in a belated confession of the sole witness.

Basking in a loopy, small-town monotony under a simmering temperature that characteristically flags up Audry and Josh's peculiarity, Hartley's meet-cute anachronistically finds a kindred spirit in Todd Solondz's faux-naïf comedies, and juxtaposing Adrienne Shelley's impish wackiness with Robert John Burke's four-square stolidness, chemistry has been incredibly cooked up, to validate that underneath their respective volatile and impassive surfaces, indeed, it is just two tender hearts hankering for a connection to retain some self-worth in a nihilistic fable.

Rounding up a coterie of game players (a puckish Edie Falco included) and shot with pristine efficiency and a low-key kuso-inflected smugness, at the end of the day, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH briskly augurs Hartley's cottage-industry, outlier-hinged hallmark that is brimful of pleasurable absurdity and sensible geniality.

Mind you, it's a wafer thin storyline. A heart-warming little story of an ex-convict returning to a city, and the infatuation of the local Lolita has for him, it touches you, ever so softly, from behind the facade of the boisterous small town existence and the foibles of the small group of townspeople who form the nucleus of the story. At the end of it, you're glad you sat down to watch it - it's a laid-back mind-soother, which leaves you with a warm feeling all over.

What elevates the film by several rungs is, however, the superb performance of Robert Burke as the mercurial, unpredictable and enigmatic Joshua Hutton, who leaves you ambivalent about his real intentions till the very end, when all is revealed. Supporting him, ably, is the petite Adrienne Shelly, who may not be strictly pretty, but has an elfin charm - not really a little girl any more, but not yet a woman. They complement each other perfectly, and it is this chemistry that makes the film glow, and forms the perfect foil to the humdrum backdrop of everything else that is going on.

It's rewarding, and relaxing, viewing - a perfect de-stresser, if there ever was one. If you can get hold of a copy, hold on, tight.

It would be true to say that there is not much action here, no bloody fights or car chases but it is just so endearing. Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke do well as lost idealist and not so new man in town respectively but everyone contributes. Hal Hartley performs magic with his inexperienced cast to involve us so inextricably with a developing and very human situation that really has nowhere to go. The dialogue is spot on and it is a joy to watch the character interchange and feel the tangible electricity between this disparate group as the electricity of past events, much mistold, unravel and retie. Masterful.

This is a great movie! When I went to see it in 1990, I had no idea what it was about. I had a pass for a free screening. What luck that was--I have not been the same since. I love deadpan comedies, and this one is the best I've seen--it paved the way for Welcome to the Dollhouse and Bottle Rocket in 1996, and director Hal Hartley has become a well-known figure in the art house scene (too bad he has never been able to duplicate the success of his first movie). Robert John Burke plays the ex con mechanic, mistaken as a man of the cloth by several characters. Adrienne Shelley (where is she now?) plays the depressed teenager who falls in love with him, despite his mysterious past (did he really kill her best friend's sister?) Shelley appeared in Hartley's second film, Trust, and then made a low budget teen comedy (can't think of the title). Burke went on to replace Peter Weller as RoboCop and star in "Thinner." What a waste of two great talents! This movie has it all--romance, comedy, a quirky soundtrack, George Washington obsession, fun with crescent wrenches, and just a bit of drama. "Listen......bombs." See it!