User reviews

This film probably won't change the world. It doesn't contain life-altering wisdom or beautiful moments of insight. It is a very restrained, very subtle piece, essentially a two-handed stage play, with a pair of talented actors delivering understated performances.

This is a double-edged sword. The down-to-earth realism means that the story drifts quietly along, as do the characters, before just kind of ending. This allows for some real moments of introspection, pause, and stillness (true things, one might say), but unfortunately it does leave a slightly pedestrian and forgettable impression. But maybe that isn't a bad thing for these types of films? I'd be interested to come back in a few years and see whether the impression has changed at all.

I found the psychodrama, TRUE THINGS (2021), to be an interesting movie. It's about a young woman named Kate (Ruth Wilson) who lives on the outskirts of society. She is content with her life until she meets a man named Blonde (Tom Burke) who comes into her life and starts to change everything.

Kate is a quiet and shy person, but she is also very curious and desperate for connection. She starts to follow Blonde around and quickly becomes infatuated with him. She starts to neglect her own life in favour of spending time with him. However, she soon realizes that he is not the man she thought he was.

The movie is well-acted, and the story is intriguing. However, it is slow-paced and may not be for everyone. The characters are developed well, and the themes of isolation and obsession are explored in depth.

Overall, I thought TRUE THINGS was a good movie. It is different from most Hollywood films, and it is worth watching.

Ruth Wilson gives a superb performance as a woman in her late thirties whose life is going nowhere. Lacking a partner, or even real friends, alienating her parents, she is lonely and unfulfilled.

She has a chance encounter with a strange but charismatic man and becomes obsessed with him. He alternately spends time with her and ignores her. I won't go into detail as it will spoil the way things unfold, but her neediness and sense of isolation are cleverly portrayed.

The rapid cuts, out-of focus shots and tuneless music get a bit irritating at times - presumably they are meant to show her confused state of mind.

At the end she achieves some kind of clarity about her life, shown by the camera-work becoming steady and focussed.

Powerful and haunting - well worth watching.

Ever been in a relationship that felt more like an intoxicating addiction? That's the situation for Katie, a down on her luck benefits worker in a UK seaside town.

Ruth Wilson is fantastic as Katie. Every movement and smile conveys the desperate neediness of someone lacking self love and connection. Tom Burke is a solid love rat, and their chemistry bubbles throughout the film.

There are some nice handheld shots, but nothing too ambitious. Worth watching, nothing to write home about.

Ruth Wilson plays an isolated single woman with low self-esteem who hooks up with a 'bad boy' and that's the whole story. It plays out in slow, miserable, unsurprising ways. Plot development? Never heard of it. This a deeply uninteresting look at boring characters going nowhere. Think Mike Leigh, but without composition, character or compassion.

The trouble is, Ruth Wilson is a good actress and manages to make this dishwater script seem more engaging than it really is, so well done Ruth. Tom Burke is fine, but his character suffers the same problem - he's bland, badly written (if written at all) and has all the complexity of a child's stick drawing.

It's self-indulgent, patience-testing guff which leaves its actors to do all the work but, ultimately, they don't have enough work to do.

There are few films i will watch till the end, i give at least 20 minutes and if it is not absorbing me by then, off it goes and on to the next. It is not outstanding at all, it's general theme or feel is slightly disturbed, like the main character, but i was certainly intrigued to find where it would evolve to. In the end it was a little quirky, if not "deserved" ending, which did not really bring closure to the main characters "position", or State.

However, i say again i was interested enough to know what may become of the main character, played by Ruth Wilson, whom i have not seen nor heard of before, but i think she is fantastic. I was inspired to write this review because of a rather bad one i saw, due to how good i KNOW she is. There are no sparks etc coming from this rather unusual film & it does have a somewhat "Depressed" feel to it, due to the main characters overall state, so not to everyone's taste, but it is certainly no less than a 5, & i give it a solid 6 for Ruth Wilson's ability alone, which inspired concern/care for her, along with being intrigued with what would ultimately become of her, and not any actor can do that. So yes, it's a sort of downbeat study of an unhappy, unloved young woman, but certainly well acted, which puts it well above much of what appears these days masquerading as "Movies". This IS at least a well acted Movie, downbeat, yes, not to everyone's taste, but a Real movie none the less. Hope to see more of her in future, certainly she deserves such, which no doubt film MAKERS will realize after seeing her here.

So there are those movies, that are really bad and you instantly hate them or they even become successful and famous for how bad they are, like The Room. This movie here has good moments, but then drifts into nothingness and this will be a movie I probably wont remember at all in a few weeks.

...and you don't have the slightest idea what that might be...(but at least you know what it is you don't want).

This film is not about romance, nor a fling or unrequitted love. It's about.a person lost in the chaos of life, lacking direction, self-esteem and balance, and craving for a purpose to live, other than what it's apparent and has been impossed as a normal life to follow: a job, a family, kids.... I understand that people who have probably never gone through theses patches of despair and nothingness could find the film boring, slow and tedious. My reccommendation is, if you don't feel caught and curious from the very beginning, just let it go and look for another pearl...there are so many...

I don't understand this movie- she's seemingly insane- why would anyone want to watch this? I love Ruth Wilson, but I was bored. And it's a lot of gratuitous sex- again, is she supposed to be insane? Does this man exist?

I don't understand why having a job where you're helping people, you have your own place makes her so miserable - parents who love her and worry about her- it's not a a tragedy. I guess in your 30s it's not ideal if you wanted to be married and have a family by then. Let's be honest though, who wants to marry someone who doesn't go to work and drinks all the time. There's not enough background given or context to the story to quite understand her. I feel nothing for her character, except, I would like to send her to inpatient treatment. I can't believe this has a 5.9 rating - so I would love for anyone to explain it to me.

... both Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke are very attractive people, and very good actors... in True Things their onscreen chemistry together is palpable-visible

.. liking both actors... just not so much in this production... the storyline made you not like-care anything about either of their characters... there was just such a lack of purpose surrounding the entire production... they wanted you to feel better at the end... yet it was-already-too-late.

I love Ruth Wilson and don't mind the lead guy (it's pretty much just them) but this sucked. Jude Law has a directing credit as does Wilson. They should be well embarrassed. Nothing happens and no one cares. The acting is fine not horrendous but the story is so weak and predictable that your time is best spent doing something else.

It also bizarrely looks like it was made in the 80s; the quality is poor and there are some truly awful jerky panning shots at the start.

For once the bad ratings are very justified. Don't bother. There's plenty of good films to watch in areas of this drivel. 4/10.

Absolute waste of my time and money.

No story line whatsoever, good actors and that's about it. Was just no point in the film to be honest.

The film could of been put into a 5 minute short film but was dragged out for no reason. Terrible.

Some of the 'reviews' on here are laughable. They clearly did not understand the nuance of relationships and how romantic obsession can take over people's lives. Ruth Wilson is brilliantly vulnerable, as is Tom Burke, the object of her desire. This is British drama at its best. Don't bother watching if you're wanting a twee romance..... This is bleak viewing at times - but essential viewing all the same. Brilliant from start to finish.

Drab depressing Brit-drama "True Things" is certainly 'true', being the credible account of the understatedly downbeat life of working-class twenty/thirty-something Ruth Wilson, who struggling to get over a break-up and unispired by her blah desk job, hooks up with 'edgy' chancer Tom Burke... but is that where her happiness lies? Director / co-writer (with Molly Davies) Harry Wootcliff aims for a raw authenticity, which she achieves, but why? It's a valid character study, played out by fine actors, but without a traditional plot it's just a pretty miserable glimpse into a bleak 'true' life. Technically sound, yes, ok, but it sure ain't escapist entertainment.

I dont understand why this movie is untilted True Things. The image is allways with the focus only at à point, à face, an eye, all the rest is absolutely out of focus. So the best title will be False Things we does not know anything only what the D. P., or the director want us to know. We lose allways what happens around them, and the context where they are. Ruth Wilson is splendid, but sorry, i look only to 20 minutes of it. It was boring overall all other point of view.

Clichéd. Clichéd. Clichéd. Why make a film like this when you haven't got a novel take on things?

Blond, played by Tom Burke, is truly horrible, but I would have been more convinced by this if he hadn't begun to shed his "charming disguise" quite so early on.

Kate, played by Ruth Wilson, is clearly rather unmoored in her seaside non-idyll. But it's not clear precisely why she seems to have no agency. Yes, the mother is overbearing and the father is a bit of a vegetable, but is that supposed to be enough to explain her inertia?

All in all, this just feels like quite a shallow exploration of Kate's listless life. Give it a miss -- in both respects.

I'll start with why this movie deserves to be called a film. This movie leaves you hanging with constantly wondering, questioning even, what the protagonist, a role fantastically played by Ruth Miller, is going to do next or what the cause of her suffering is, although the assumption is it's a bored and unfulfilled person just looking for some new action.

This is not the "person on a journey of self discovery" type film one would expect as it cannot be boxed in to this type of genre. This movie really gets down to a person's pain that causes a withdrawal from one's life. A withdrawal that fills a person with grief and a loathing of, and to, the self and the life being lived.

How did this whole framing of turmoil, insecurity, emotional pain, and grief actually happen on the screen?

I'll tell you how; fantastic acting, editing, and direction along with the whole group of glorious collaborators that created an enthralling piece of work. Mr. Blond remains enigmatic through the entire flick.