In the darkest of times, we sometimes convince ourselves of certain impossibilities thanks to blind hope. It’s a spectacular human trait that somehow manages to surpass our inherent rationality. Rowan Athale’s new picture Strange but True deals with the trait and how sometimes just embracing the impossible is better than facing the truth. 

Strange but True begins with Melissa (Margaret Qualley), who is 36 weeks pregnant, visiting the relatives of her deceased boyfriend Ronnie (Connor Jessup), claiming it’s his child. The only issue is, he’s been dead for 5 years. From there, Ronnie’s brother Phillip (Nick Robinson) and their mother Charlene (Amy Ryan) go on separate journeys to discover their truths, embracing the impossible along the way. 

This film is a tale of two halves, with the first half being by far the worse of the two. It quickly dissolves into wild speculation about how Melissa fell pregnant. A lot of different branches are extended to find a solution to this issue, but none manage to be particularly captivating. Everything happens quite fast in the grand scheme of things, and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Thanks to this, there is an inescapable sense of predictability throughout, and I don’t think the filmmakers were banking on that. It’s as if the film is talking into a pillow, and you really want to listen to what it is trying to say but you just can’t. This dampens some of the thrills, but not all of them. 

This is where the second half of the film comes in. The vast majority of Strange but True’s second half is intensely gripping. It’s hard to say too much without spoiling it, but the film well and truly overcomes its predictability and replaces it with raw thrills. It all ends abruptly but other than that this portion is massively entertaining, especially when compared to the opening. Knowing when to believe a lie is the message of this movie, and this section drives that concept. The truth is sometimes too dark to accept, so maybe it’s better to believe in something impossible. It’s a thought-provoking and touching sentiment, one the film as a whole never manages to grasp fully, but there are a few moments when it feels like the movie has something to say, and when those occur it all feels like a fully realised film.

The performances are all respectable. There is a lack of a real standout, but Amy Ryan delivers some powerful work as always, and the Robinson and Qualley make for a stirring pair. Had the script been more refined I think the actors would have found themselves with more in-depth characters to sink their teeth into.

What we get instead are tropey husks of what could have been actually interesting characters. Athale seems determined to make sure every character has a reason for being where they are now, and all the exposition adds up, and we find ourselves inundated with information we didn’t need to know. It makes characters that should have been endearing rather dull for a good part of the runtime. 

Strange but True is at its best when it builds upon the concept of subjective truth, and that happens enough for this to be worth watching. However, it almost loses itself in dull character backstories and wild conspiracy theories.

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