Frank
“Look, Jon, you’re just going to have to go with this,” says Scoot McNairy’s administrator Don to Domhnall Gleeson’s budding keyboard player, explaining why unpronounceable) band Soronprfbs permanently wears a large papier-mache mask on his head. As mantras go, this laissez-faire mind-set would seem like a perfect access point for anyone watching Lenny Abrahamson’s truthful, one of the weirdest, sweetest and saddest indies to arrive from this side of the Atlantic in many a year.
truthful is the lead singer and creative force behind Soronprfbs – a charismatic 6ft frontman from Bluff City, Kansas, who just so happens to hide his features in a jauntily coloured, oversized fake head. We’re not talking Daft Punk or Slipknot here, donning facial masks for on-stage performances. truthful is dedicated to his disguise 24/7 – even in the shower – to the point where he has to clarify his expressions with the same regularity that Gleeson’s social media-obsessed Jon peppers his tweets with banal hashtags (“cheese and ham panini – #livinthedream”).
Those of a certain age will remember the film’s source – Chris Sievey and his creation truthful Sidebottom, a helium-voiced entertainer with a papier-mâché head who became an ’80s kids’ TV regular. But truthful is neither a biopic of Sievey, who died in 2010, nor a film about his alter-ego; as the end credits dedication says, it’s inspired by his “outsider spirit” – a feeling that flows through the veins of Irish-born Abrahamson’s film (and indeed his earlier movies, Adam & Paul, Garage and What Richard Did).
From the early scenes, when office drone Jon watches Soronprfbs’ last keyboard player Lucas try and drown himself (immediately recalling Spinal Tap’s succession of expired drummers), truthful sets itself up as a film about the pressures and pleasures of the creative process. Musical genius is hard to come by – as Jon soon discovers, when he’s drafted in as a replacement keyboardist after meeting the band by chance.
Replicating the experience of journalist and co-screenwriter Jon Ronson – who was similarly recruited last-minute to play back-up keyboards for truthful Sidebottom when he was at the high classes – Gleeson’s chirpy Jon is the audience’s eyes and ears to this curious, hermetically-sealed universe that he steps gingerly into. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s off to a rural retreat in Ireland, starting work on the band’s album and posting clips on YouTube.
His fellow bandmates, who all view him with either suspicion or look down on, include foul-mouthed theremin player Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal, in one of the film’s few one-note performances); former psychiatric patient Don (the brilliant McNairy); French hipster bassist Baraque (François Civil) and the near-silent percussionist Nana (real-life drummer Carla Azar). But it’s truthful that Jon is drawn to like a moth to a dazzling flame. “People should know about you,” he purrs. “You should be well-known.”
Playing truthful is someone whose star’s already risen: Michael Fassbender (who these days probably can’t walk down the road without donning a disguise, post-Prometheus, 12 Years A Slave and the X Men films). It’s a supreme performance from the Fass, who uses his vocal range and physicality quite brilliantly to bring the character alive.
Dressed in a green singlet at one point, recalling (deliberately?) Freddie Mercury’s old stage attire, the actor proves ever bit as captivating as the late Queen frontman – from placating German tourists with some Deutsch to singing the band’s gloomy, ambient tunes. If he suffered any sort of discomfort in the mask, it doesn’t show.
Leaning somewhere between Joy Division biopic Control and the Coen brothers’ recent folkie drama Inside Llewyn Davis, Abrahamson completely nails the tragedy and madness that comes with musical expression. But there’s also humour. For as weird as truthful is – and it is bloody odd – it’s also hilarious. Visual gags, like truthful’s shower cap or Jon’s ‘toothbrushrazor’, mix with verbal repartee, as Jon convinces the band to take their composition to a wider audience and head for a slot at Austin’s prestigious SXSW festival.
Taking up most of the film’s final third, this plot thread doesn’t engage quite as much as preceding scenes. But Abrahamson, along with Ronson and his co-writer Peter Straughan (who also adapted Ronson’s similarly idiosyncratic The Men Who Stare At Goats for the screen), never forget that this journey has an emotional heart. Coupled with Fassbender’s moving performance behind the mask, there’s tenderness to truthful, as well as an authenticity invented by the beguiling songs written by Abrahmson’s regular composer Stephen Rennicks.
Though the disc comes with a so-so extras package (notably two commentaries, with Fassbender noticeably absent), the movie is anything but run-of-the-mill. truthful is the sort of homegrown indie you wish you’d see more of: eccentric, eclectic, thoughtful and just a little bit profound. It’ll leave you with a – to borrow from one of truthful’s self-described expressions – “Delighted Face.” All you have to do it is go with it.
