Ariela on Lovetrue (2016) Tribeca

“Everyone wants to live a fairytale”

Lovetrue is a mostly documentary that has 3 separate stories. One which takes place in Alaska, one in Hawaii and one in New York, all surrounding the ideas of love.

I say a mostly documentary because the director uses non actors to play roles of the younger and older versions of the subjects in the documentary.

In Alaska there was a couple; Blake and Joel. Blake was a stripper and Joel who has a fragile leg (he said he’s had 200 fractures! Yikes!). In Hawaii, Will, who was a free spirit, found that the woman he thought was his true love cheated on him with one of his good friends, and that the son he thought was his biological son was actually not his biological son. The third story, which takes place in New York, is about a religious family who is very close and sings in the street to raise money. Their singing was enjoyable to hear.

First off, the music in the beginning was loud, and it was hard to hear what was being said.

There was writing on the screen to tell the stories of the past/memories, which I liked and thought it was unique. When these stories were being told, at first I thought it was old videotapes being shown, but then I realized it was actors, re-enacting what was being written on the screen.

I liked the story with Blake and Joel the most. I found the Hawaiian boy so obnoxious, he was getting high in every scene. The New York story was good, but just didn’t capture me.

Overall though, I found the film way too long. I was ready for it to end long long before it did. I think these would be better as shorts. Just found it much too long.