Hearts screening - review - TRU LOVE by Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald

Time and time again, there is reason to complain about fast paced cinema stripping films of the emotive charge of the storylines they tell. It has become a clichéd convention, hence – particularly in today’s films – that the vast majority of films should move so fast and become an artificial representation of real life and, most prominently, the relationship between on screen characters. That is why a film like Tru Love stands a purifying experience that, in its simplicity, builds up credibility for its personages and inspired a natural and somewhat meditative connection with its audience.

This is the story of a 33 year old woman names Tru, with a reputation as a lesbian Don Juan, who meets and falls for Alice, the 60 year old mother of Suzanne, a friend of hers. The strange attraction is so pure and strong between them that from the outset, the platonic love’s development into a more complete love is never questionable. Furthermore, the most touching element of this attraction and the resulting subplots that spin out of the dramatic triangle of this storyline is that the three women Tru Love focuses on have been touched and scarred by loneliness and long for connection in ways that makes this meeting powerful and captivating.

Tru is afraid of attachment and scared of commitment. Alice is mourning her recently deceased husband. His death led to an awakening or re-discovery of undiscovered feelings, yet she still imagines conversations with her life partner on a constant basis. Suzanne, on the other hand, has forced a life of career to escape emotive vulnerability – a life that sees her hardened, cold and all too often distantly alienated against her will.

Though the film is Canadian, it is rather European in style. Eric Rohmer with added warmth and less love of alliterated dialogue, Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald’s dialogue is blatantly and frustratingly real to the point of sometimes feeling simplistic and surprising the viewer with gems of poetry. But what truly lets these three characters speak out and reveal themselves on the screen is the unhurried pacing, the simple cinematography that nevertheless treasures its Toronto landscape – a character in the movie in its own right providing intercut moments of solemnity among the intense confrontations between Tru, Alice and Suzanne.

And the three leading ladies step up to the challenge with their excellent and human performances. Shauna MacDonald, who also co-directed the film, is particularly magnetic and shows great connection with her character. A times her interpretation of Tru feels cat-like, and there is always a feeling that her softness and sweetness as well as her attitude and charisma can vanish into thin air at the first sign of rejection for her own protection. Tru is a woman that needs to be loved, and Alice for her represents a mother and a lover rolled into one. In the same way, Alice is in need of a daughter and one last big love – and Tru offers to satisfy both those needs.

Strictly speaking, despite the lesbian themed storyline, this is more a film about womanhood than homosexuality. Which is also refreshing, because it is true that lesbian movies in particular have rarely been able to evade categorisation as a niche film or exaggerated and stylised flamboyance. Well, if anyone will speak of Tru Love as a niche film, it is not because of lesbianism but because it ultimately tends to a more art-house audience willing to escape the restlessness of our social media generation to re-discover true emotional connection over fake projections of life. That is why Tru Love’s coating of timelessness makes it all the more of a treat to watch – demanding for some, but heart-warming to many.