What’s up! I’m Marlon, and this is Ulven Reviews: movies and series from all over the world.
Today let’s talk about the Thai Horror Mystery The Whole Truth, directed by Wisit Sasanatieng.
Short Summary:
After a tragedy, two teenage siblings go live with their grandparents and find an eerie hole in the wall connected to the past.
Detailed Summary:
Mai (played by Nicole Theriault) just got a promotion, so she’ll take her to kids to dinner at some restaurant of their choice after work. The kids are:
Pim (played Sutatta Udomsilp), who is beautiful, outgoing, and successful at school;
and Putt, introverted, physically impaired, and with few friends.
Since Mai got a raise with the promotion, the company will suck her labor dry, so she has to go home much later and suffers a road accident on the way home, putting her in a coma.
With the mother in a coma, Pim and Putt have to go live with their parents, which the mother never even mentioned: Phong (played by Sompob Benjathikul), a rigid former police Lieutenant general;
and Wan (played by Tarika Tidatid), who have episodes of dementia.
In the grandparent’s house, the kids find a strange hole in the wall that seems to show disturbing events of the past.
The Whole Truth is decent enough, but it’s much more of a mystery than it is a horror. The hole in the wall offers us more of a mysterious story than anything scary. I didn’t think the movie was scary at all. Sometimes it has a disturbing visual, but that’s it, nothing else.
It is a horror story, though. The plot is very basic, without anything new. It’s the typical haunting story: something happened in the past, now the ghost (or whoever) is acting on it.
There’s no groundbreaking storytelling here. It’s just the average horror movie story.
Summarizing and clarifying everything I said: this movie is a horror story told in a slow-paced, mystery style. We find the things out while the kids are finding the things out.
Slow-paced or not, I didn’t find the movie boring at any moment. It was entertaining and engaging, we are frequently trying to figure out what happened, what is the story the hole is trying to tell.
And being honest, I didn’t get the full story until the movie actually told us, so props to them, because after watching so many movies, it gets to a point to figure the whole film out in the very first minutes. That didn’t happen here.
There are also some side dramas that I don’t think necessarily improve the movie.
One of them is the president-of-the-cheerleaders-drama that I find absolutely unnecessary, stupid, and out of place.
Then there’s the thing with Putt’s friend, Fame (played by Sadanont Durongkaweroj), he wants to fuck Pim and threatens to release a video of her taking a shower in the school’s fitting room if Putt doesn’t facilitate for him.
At least this side drama adds more tension to the movie, but I’m not sure it fits with the overall story of it it, seems slightly out of place.
I like the characters. The grandparents reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan’s 2015 movie, The Visit. If you watched it you know what I mean.
I liked fame as a character, as well. He’s a disgusting predator, but he is kinda dumb, and his dumbness was funny. So, he was a nice comic relief.
Now, the two kids, Pim and Putt, are decent. Nothing special, but it was enough to carry the movie along.
The performances were good enough, not distracting. There were very few performances that were a little off, but nothing that bothers me.
These performances I’m talking about reminded me of guest appearances. I’ll give an example.
Let me say you’re making a movie and you want a famous fighter to make a little appearance only giving an award or something. So he does his part, he is not bad, he’s not atrocious, but he’s no DiCaprio either. I mean, he’s a fighter, he’s not an actor, and their participation is very small. So, you just move along.
There are one or two minor appearances in the movie that reminded me of these situations, but, as I said, it’s very small so I wasn’t bothered by it, it didn’t affect my experience watching the movie.
Now, if you’re a cherry-picking c*nt, it might affect yours… who knows.
I feel the best performances were by the grandparents. The grandmother rose in the last act, that requires more from her acting. But I think the most solid throughout was the grandfather.
The very technical cinematography was above average. I love the colors, the lighting, the contrast, the camera movements, and everything is very well-rounded.
Nothing is out of this world. There’s nothing to awe us, like the works of Lubezki and Deakins. It’s very basic, but with excellent execution.
I also like the score. Another thing that was a little above average. It has more punch and personality than those I call generic scores.
The Whole Truth doesn’t bring anything new but is an entertaining addition to the genre. It will probably not change anyone’s life (at least not anyone in the audience, it will probably change the life of some of the cast), but it helps pass some time, some good quality time. I can’t even remember anything actually bad about the movie. So, I’ll give The Whole Truth 6 Moons!
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Dos Ratos 