TRUTH BE TOLD Review
I've been tracking Truth Be Told for some time already, as early as January when I got wind of the production. I even chased it all the way to the Hong Kong in March this year, and could have attended the press screening, but alas the clash of timings meant I returned home empty handed save for a promotional flyer. Nonetheless I'm glad that it finally got a theatrical screening on home soil.
A first feature film by husband and wife team TEO Eng Tiong and LIM Jen Nee, I felt Truth Be Told had a satisfying story, in that it doesn't try to bite off more than it can chew, and smartly put everything to happen within 12 hours, which naturally reduced the number of challenges one might face with production logistics and continuity. Compacting the timeline meant little luxury for the plot to drag unnecessarily, and it kept its even tempo throughout, save for some flashback moments inserted now and then which built the backstory of the lead characters in the movie. I felt that the editing between flashbacks could have been clearer, or transitioned more smoothly (I've always regarded Highlander being one of the best in this aspect), but this is just a minor gripe, and nobody would get lost in the narrative style anyway.
Television actress Yvonne Lim makes her debut foray into local film, and she plays Renee Donovan, who's back in Singapore to take on a new career as a television producer for the current affairs programme "Exposed" for fictional television station Channel 6. With her on the job is an experienced cameraman Damien, played by actor Bernard Tan, and it's your usual rookie versus an old hand, with conflicting ideals and ideas as to the coverage of their content that led them to Blk 33 Bukit Ho Swee, which in actuality, one of Singapore's "troubled" neighbourhoods with a majority of elderly folks living in the old 1 to 2 room flats with dark and stanky corridors.
This presents ample opportunity for the filmmakers to tackle some genuine and real social issues on the plight of those forgotten and left behind in our nation's pursuit of excellence and wealth, without the feeling of being overwhelmingly forced, while holding the cards closely to their chest, revealing slowly but surely, the keys to the mysteries presented. While no doubt enacted and fictional, it captured some stark scenes which we might have encountered in passing as we go about our daily lives, such as that old lady around the corner whom nobody actually knows about personally, but becomes a cruel victim of various neighbourhood rumours, no thanks to the idling aunties at void decks. Or the disappearing cobbler who plys his trade at the neighbourhood centres, and the ubiquitous coffeeshops selling economical rice.
The leading characters here are layered, in that there's always more to the surface of things, though it reined itself in by not being overly complicated and confusing. Like the secrets behind closed doors and having dirty linen not washed in public, everyone is more than meets the eye. And the story allows you to speculate their backgrounds as you go along with the nuggets of information provided, until all are resolved toward the finale. You'll wonder about the Chinese girl having "Donovan" as a last name, the wanting to break the poverty cycle with education and thus an opportunity to escape the rut, and the extremes one would go to forget an embarrassing past when moving on.
But it's not always doom and gloom in this drama-mystery, although the trailers would have you believe it might be some kind of movie shot with content straight from the X-Files. It's more rooted in realism than the supernatural, really. Ample light hearted moments are provided by Tan, a caricature of civil servants who take pride in their execution of various statutory board and government policies. He has perhaps the best lines in the movie and Louis Lim delivered them so convincingly, you won't be faulted if you thought that he really was one of those civil servant types, acted perfectly to a T. Yvonne Lim has shown that she can carry a movie on her petite shoulders despite not being one of the obvious A-listers on Mediacorp, and she joins the ranks of the rare few who have broken through from television to the silver screen, while the veterans actors like Liang Tian and Steven Woon lent their heavyweight presence to the production.
In obvious terms, you can only do a first film once, and Truth Be Told is one of the better looking Singapore first films that not only looks right, but has a decent story to tell. It doesn't set out to shock audiences with daliances on things like violence, language, nudity, sex or by having itself banned. Instead, it presents itself as an uncomplicated drama mystery story which had delivered the best it can.
