La Vérité ou presque (2007)
Directed by Sam Karmann

Film Review

Despite its impressive cast and its earnest treatment of some serious themes ('to lie or not to lie, that is the question...'), it is hard to warm to this frenetic comedy of manners, which feels rather like a tasty casserole that has been left in the oven for too long.  The ingredients are appetising but the overcooked repast is hard to digest and sits heavily on the stomach. For his third feature, actor-turned director Sam Karmann (who won an Oscar and Palme d'Or at Cannes for his short film Omnibus (1992)) adapts the American author Stephen McCauley's 2001 novel True Enough. As with the director's previous two films - Kennedy et Moi (1999) and À la petite semaine (2003) - this latest offering has charm and immediacy but it suffers somewhat from being too considered and self-consciously stylised. It lacks the lightness of touch that it badly needs to engage the audience and provide some contrast between the lighter and darker moments. La Vérité ou presque is less entertaining than you would expect given the calibre of its cast but at least the performances make up for the somewhat heavy-handed writing and direction. Karin Viard is at her best in this kind of comedy-drama and pretty well performs a one-woman salvage operation, assisted by an unusually self-effacing André Dussollier and the amiable-as-ever François Cluzet.

Film Synopsis

Anne's supposedly stable, well-ordered life is about to become horribly tangled when she develops an interest in Vincent.  The fault lines were there already, but Anne was too busy with her high-pressured job as a television presenter to notice.  Although she is happily married to Thomas, and has a young son, she can't help meeting up from time to time with her ex-husband, Marc.  What she doesn't know is that her husband has also been indulging in a spot of marital infidelity, and with Marc's present wife Caroline.

It is hard to say what drew Anne towards Vincent, an author who is currently writing a biography about the jazz singer Pauline Anderton.  He is the kind of man she naturally warms to.  He is charming, intelligent and sensitive, but - and she has yet to find this out - he is also gay.  Anne is soon to discover that she has a fierce rival in Vincent's present boyfriend, Lucas, who is of the neurotically jealous kind.  Through a series of misunderstandings and deceptions, life is about to get very complicated not only for Anne, but for everyone in her entourage...