Catherine Deneuve at her most Deneuve-ish: The Truth reviewed

To tell you the truth about The Truth, even though it stars Catherine Deneuve at her most Catherine Deneuve-ish (i.e. campily grand) and I was so looking forward it — it’s the first non-Japanese production from Hirokazu Kore-eda, who made the very lovely Shoplifters — it is now quite hard to concentrate on anything in films beyond the fact that they already feel like social history. My God, there was a time when people just went out and about willy-nilly? And they hugged and kissed and weren’t always washing their hands while singing ‘Happy Birthday’? So that gets in the way, as does having to watch films at home rather than on a big screen, now that cinemas have closed. But we will try our best — here to serve and what have you.

The film is set in France and stars Deneuve as Fabienne, a legendary actress who lives in a magnificent Parisian house and goes wherever she pleases (even though she is over 70; risky). She has just published a memoir, The Truth, and we first encounter her as she’s happily intimidating the journalist who is trying to conduct an interview.

As ever, she is attended by her long-time manager, who makes tea that is never to her liking. (Not hot enough.) She is sly and points out that her manager looks like John Gielgud but ‘less distinguished’. They are disturbed by the arrival of guests at the door. (Visitors! Imagine!) ‘I’ll leave,’ volunteers the journalist. ‘It’s nothing,’ she says dismissively, ‘just my daughter and her little family.’ So we have her measure, we think. But although this is about a tricky mother-daughter relationship it’s no Maman Dearest. As with all Kore-eda’s work, there is empathy and compassion and subtlety and while Fabienne is a monster, you always understand there is a deep, deep loneliness there.