Review The Whole Truth is a thriller-mystery-drama directed by Wisit
Sasanatieng with a haunting family horror story.
The Whole Truth stars actors Sutatta U domainsilp, Nattapat Nimjirawat and
Sompob Benjathikul among others. The film is 125 minutes long.
The Whole Truth is an odd combination of The Grudge and The Visit. You know
you're jumping into an M. Night Shyamalan movie the moment a mysterious old
man the kids have never seen before visits them.
The opening premise draws you in; A mother of two (Mia) is involved in a car
accident with a drunk driver, and is hospitalized in a coma. Her two
children, Putt and Pim, stay at their grandparents' house. Interestingly,
they had never met their grandparents before. The longer they stayed at
home, the more they noticed a hole in the wall that seemed to look into the
house next door. Terror struck in waves as the children drew closer to the
truth.
And in fact, The Whole Truth holds a lot of promise. Netflix's movie
teases audiences as much as the characters, but the way the movie plots is
limited. Every time one of the children saw the hole in the wall, the other
asked, “Can you see the hole in the wall?” Yes, we can all see it. Directors
forget that audiences have eyes and a movie is not a story told to them.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that things are not as the children
imagined. The sweet amnesiac grandma is not as cute and innocent as she
looks. Mom too, and grandfather, his uncontrollable rage turned into his
downfall, and in the end, things quickly spiraled out of control.
The movie's intro is amazing; it sets the mood with a great combination of
cleverly placed visuals, along with great camera work that zooms through the
hole where the story comes out, revealing layer after layer of events
aghast.
The accompanying music also adds to the tension and creates anticipation for
the audience.
The use of shades of blue and green gives the effect that something unusual
and certain scary will happen to the characters as these shades dominate
most scenes.
The Whole Truth misses out on the basics of a horror movie; builds tension,
engages the audience, leaves words unsaid and encapsulates what horror
really is. By the time you get to the end of this movie, this shift is
already beyond an overly long movie maybe over an hour.
The characters do their best with a revealing script, and it's clear that
the director tried to throw in as much horror as possible. And admittedly,
the use of sound has worked, but this is misguided and off-topic – even a
story of “the horror of manifest truth” is not enough to save the movie.