A family is caught in a web of lies, fears, and suspense after the ex-girlfriend of their deceased son appears five years after his death — and tells them she is carrying his child.
“Strange but True” struggles its whole runtime to produce anything meaningful. Margaret Qualley brings a sense of respect to this film and while it helps that her role is front and central, it doesn’t help keep the movie together in the least.
The premise is this, five years after her lover’s untimely death, Melissa (Qualley) arrives at his parents’ home to spread the news that she is pregnant by him. From there the story goes downhill and the characters do too. I kept thinking maybe there was more depth in the writing. Maybe the acclaimed novel, like so many have had gloriously written stories that when taken and folded into an adaptation, lose their grandeur. I can’t see how a film can be filled with this many empty characters doing so many empty things without it being noted in the novel to some degree. The melodrama and angsty suspense seem artificial even in the simplest of scenes.
Halfway through the movie, the tone changes and while one hopes that it could at least give reason to watch, it does not. When the tone changes, all it does is make it hard for anyone who is trying to write a critique, to decide whether it is trying to be a less than stellar film or one that wants to masquerade as one with something important to say.
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