Russell Crowe has his directorial debut, directing himself, in The Water Diviner. The film is supposed to be based on true events, but from the limited research I conducted via a quick Google search, the only truths in the film are 1.) World War one happened. 2.) There was a horrific battle between the Australian forces and Turkish forces at Gallipoli, resulting in thousands of casualties on both sides. 3.) An Australian farmer went to Gallipoli in search of a dead son.

So, with all that out of the way, we can approach this as a piece of historical fiction, inaccurate warts and all. If anyone viewing this as an accurate historical account, evidently they think Braveheart and Pearl Harbor are documentaries, and lets movies write their history. Clearly, historical fiction and history are two very very different things and should be treated and viewed as such. I have no issue with a movie just being a movie that takes place during a historical point in time—there are plenty of films that do just that and tell us a compelling story framed by a significant historical event. I take issue when a film such as this tells us that it is based on true events, yet only fulfills that obligation in the most basic way possible. I think it is disingenuous.

Now to be fair, I don't think that Crowe set out to lie to the public about the battle of Gallipoli, or that he wants us to think that the what happens in The Water Diviner is abject fact; however, there is a reason why “based on true events” is something we are told at the beginning of the film. It's a cheap way to ad gravitas to the situation, and in this case I feel it to be unnecessary. The character arc doesn't need supposed reality to feel real and carry weight. A father losing all three of his sons to war, on the same day in the same battle doesn't need to be true to be effective. A footnote at the end would've sufficed.

Crowe directs himself as Mr. Connor, an Australian farmer and water diviner who sent his three boys off to war. All three boys were lost, and Mrs. Connor is never able to recover. She drowns herself, leaving Connor by himself. Connor is determined to find his boys and packs up his things and heads to Turkey. In Turkey he meets an attractive Turkish woman and her son who have also lost someone to the war. Connor finds his way to Gallipoli and befriends the Turkish officer who commanded the Turkish forces during the battle. The Turkish commander takes an interest in Connor and tries to help him find his missing sons.

The romantic subplot with the incredibly beautiful Turkish woman (Olga Kurylenko), with whom Russell Crowe immediately falls in love and whose son still thinks his father will come back from the war, follows throughout the entire film, which results in very basic storytelling and is all very flat and predictable.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but The Water Diviner, to me, is just dramatic schlock trying to give itself importance by wearing a cloak of historical significance. Crowe's direction is muddy, heavy handed, and cliché, never really giving us anything to grab and hold. If it is trying to show the horror of the war and the campaign in Galliopli, it falls flat. 

Just listen to Pogues cover of “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and you'll get a better picture of how horrible that battle was, and how it affected the nation of Australia.   


—Eric Harrelson 

True Story, directed by Rupert Goold, wants to grapple with all the lofty concepts. The intersection where lies, truth, and identity converge are at the core of this story. There is an earnest effort to include these broader ideas into the framework of a “story that is true," but True Story’s shortcoming isn’t daring to take on these questions—it’s the inability to pull them apart in a meaningful way.

The film will occasionally shoot a flare into the darkened corners of these numerous concepts, but full illumination is a far off ambition. True Story is an unfortunate instance where the director seems outmatched by the quality of the material. The premise is so delicious, the talent is very good, even the script is solid, but the hand on the till does not hold up its end of the bargain. In the most important moments of pure story, the film betrays itself again and again. Executed with an alarming lack of grace, and at least two moments of utter movie hokum, I’m not sure if Goold doesn’t trust his audience or himself, but either way it mortally wounds what could have been a fine film.

If you’re unfamiliar, True Story is based on a memoir of the same name by once disgraced journalist Michael Finkel. Our picture opens with some very sloppy scene setting. Running on parallel tracks soon to converge, we see an arrogant Finkel setting up his downfall, and another man in Mexico being arrested for the murder of his wife and three children. This fugitive claims to be New York Times journalist Michael Finkel. Finkel, in desperate need of a story, is soon hooked up with Christian Longo—the accused murderer claiming the Finkel identity—and they begin to connect to each other, each for their own reason. Pretty juicy, right? Well, with emphasis in all the wrong places, we’re only left to salivate.

Our bright spot is the acting. If you’d have told me as I walked out of Superbad that Jonah Hill was going to be a marked talent, I would’ve said, “is he the guy that played the one tall cop?” But Hill as Finkel and Franco as Longo deliver the finest moments this film has to offer. The exchanges between Longo and Finkel, all filmed in a small prison visitation room, are at times very powerful. It’s their film, as it should be, and almost all of the other characters serve as nothing more than conduits for a single, flimsy perspective. I do feel for Felicity Jones, though. They asked her character to do more than she was given to work with, always an unfavorable arrangement. One moment in particular—something likely perceived as an emotional climax—is so very misguided that it was like watching a wonderful talent trapped at the bottom of a well of terrible writing. Shame on that.

Goold’s failing with True Story is an inability to get out of the way of what makes the story so fascinating. The movie wants to be arc driven. All bad beats and stumbling paces, he’s trying to pull some kind of cat-and-mouse thriller out of a story that’s just not a who-done-it. Our betrayals are painfully on the nose, and our big reveals are foregone conclusions. This is a tale of two men projecting and reflecting so much of what they want to see in themselves and each other, truth and lies become multiple heads feeding one narcissistic belly.

The truth is malleable, synthesized through the unreliability of the human condition. Our view of the world, the way a particular adjective sounds in our head, using a certain noun instead of another, pure truth is an ideal appropriately out of reach. It’s easy to lie. And lies, knowing misdirection concocted from within, are dangerous in their authenticity. One event from 100 perspectives has as many truths. One lie, it’s personal, it’s handcrafted, it’s—even as inherent fabrication—honest, drawn from a contained perspective. True Story fumbles with all of this, but only in the peripheral. These were events filtered through one man, published on edited pages, and processed through the ultimate distortion, a film production. The consuming lie of it all is the most enticing part, but as with so many endeavors, a premium was placed on the belief they could tell a true story.

—Monte Monreal