Summary
The Whole Truth misses the basics of a horror film.
This review of the Netflix film The Whole Truth (2021) does not contain spoilers.
The Whole Truth may have a swivelling concept that terrorises the characters increasingly with each passing minute, but something is not quite pieced together about this horror film. The plot is leaning towards a final truth, but it fails at basic storytelling.
The opening premise reels you in; a mother of two children (Mia) ends up in a car accident with a drunk driver, and lands in hospital in a coma. Her two children, Putt and Pim, stay at their grandparents. Interestingly, they’ve never met their grandparents before. The longer they stay at the house, the more they notice a hole in a wall that seemingly looks into next door. The horrors come in waves as the children get closer to the truth.
And in practice, The Whole Truth has plenty of promise. The Netflix film tantalises the audience as much as the characters, but the exposition is too often, too amateur and over-delivered. Everytime one of the children sees the hole in the wall, the other enquires, “can you see the hole in the wall?” Yes, we can all see it. The director forgot that the audience have eyes and that a film is not a narrative read to them.
The Whole Truth misses the basics of a horror film; build the tension, entice the audience, leave words unspoken and encapsulate what the horror actually is. By the time you reach the end of this film, the twist is surplus to an overlong feature that could have been over in an hour.
The characters do their best with an exposed script, and it’s evident that the director was attempting to throw in as many horror tropes as possible. And admittedly, the use of sounds were effective, but this is a misfire and misses the point — even a story about the “horror of the manifested truth” is not enough to save the film.
And I find it a shame; there’s something promising about The Whole Truth but there’s a glaring issue with it that makes the two hours not worth your time.
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