---
title: "The Unbelievable Truth"
year: 1990
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-unbelievable-truth"
fi1m_id: "the-unbelievable-truth"
imdb_id: "tt0100842"
tmdb_id: 38545
wikidata_id: "Q2363912"
fi1m_score: 76
critics_score: 74
critics_reviews: 4
published: "2026-09-26T01:54:27.907996+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-26T01:54:28.329966+00:00"
region: "PH"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Unbelievable Truth (1990)

Directed by Hal Hartley · 1h 30m · Comedy, Drama, Romance

## Identity

The Unbelievable Truth

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-unbelievable-truth
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-unbelievable-truth
- **IMDb ID:** tt0100842
- **TMDB ID:** 38545
- **Wikidata ID:** Q2363912
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100842/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/38545, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2363912

**Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 74 (early) from 4 reviews

*In a sentence:* Everyone in town knows exactly what Josh did, nobody agrees on what it was, and he is too polite to correct them

> Hal Hartley’s first film is a small-town romance told in flat, careful sentences, and most of the jokes are in the way people repeat what they have heard. It is dry, likeable and slightly stiff, and at 90 minutes it knows when to stop.

## Synopsis

Long Island, at the end of the 1980s. Josh (Robert John Burke) walks back into his home town in a black suit, carrying a suitcase, fresh out of prison. Everyone remembers that two people died before he went away; nobody agrees on how, and the number of dead grows with each telling. Audry (Adrienne Shelly) is due to leave for college, is certain a nuclear war will get there first, and spends her days arguing with her father Vic Hugo (Chris Cooke), who owns the garage where Josh asks for work. Her boyfriend Emmet (Gary Sauer) is on the way out, a photographer called Todd Whitbread (David Healy) wants to take her picture, and Pearl (Julia McNeal) crosses the street when she sees Josh coming. Vic strikes a bargain with his daughter about her future, and Audry starts making bargains of her own.

## Review

Hal Hartley’s first film opens with a man in a black suit walking along a Long Island road with a suitcase, and within a few minutes he has been picked up by a driver who takes him for a priest. He is Josh (Robert John Burke), home from prison, and the town has decided what he did before he gets there. Hartley writes and directs, and he builds the whole film out of what people say about each other and how little of it anyone bothers to check. It is small, funny and a little stiff in places, and we recommend it to anyone who likes a comedy spoken rather than acted out.

Audry (Adrienne Shelly) is the girl of the tagline. She is meant to be going to college, she is sure the bomb will fall before she gets there, and she has been negotiating with her father Vic (Chris Cooke) over what she will be paid to go. Vic runs the garage where Josh asks for work. Her boyfriend Emmet (Gary Sauer) is being dropped and does not know it yet, and his friend Mike (Mark Chandler Bailey) is not much help. A photographer, Todd Whitbread (David Healy), wants her to model. That is the first act, and it is nearly all conversation.

The conversations are the style. Hartley has his cast deliver lines flat and evenly, without the little pauses and shrugs that make dialogue sound natural, so that a sentence about murder and a sentence about a used car carry the same weight. It takes ten minutes to get used to and then it is the funniest thing in the film. Michael Spiller shoots the town in plain daylight, forecourts and kitchens and a diner counter, with people placed square in the frame as if they were waiting to have their picture taken. Carla Gerona’s production design leaves Vic’s garage looking like a garage, with oil on the floor and a calendar on the wall, and the Hugo house looking like nobody has bought anything for it since the children were small. Jim Coleman’s score is a handful of guitar chords that come round again and again, which suits a film in which every story is told twice.

Burke is large, quiet and almost motionless, and he plays Josh as a man who has decided that arguing with a rumour only feeds it. He does not drink, he does not raise his voice, and he lets the town call him a mass murderer to his face without blinking. Shelly makes Audry’s certainty about the end of the world sound like common sense, and her scenes of bargaining with her father are as sharp as anything Hartley wrote later. Cooke is the one we laughed at most. Vic treats his daughter’s education as a deal to be closed, and Cooke never once lets on that he knows it is funny.

We were surprised to be moved. It happens in a scene between Josh and Pearl (Julia McNeal), whose reason for avoiding him we will leave to the film. Nobody in it says anything they mean, and Burke stands there and takes it, and the flatness that has been making us laugh for an hour suddenly reads as a man who has run out of things to say for himself. Hartley does not underline it. He cuts to the garage and gets on.

The method has a cost. Some of the exchanges go round one more time than they need to, and a few of the smaller players, Emmet and Mike among them, deliver the deadpan without anything behind it, so they sound less like people than like actors doing the voice. Edie Falco has a small part as Jane and is given almost nothing to do. And when the plot finally asks for an event rather than a conversation, in the second half, Hartley stages it awkwardly; he is better at people standing still than at people doing things.

He made the same kind of film again with *Trust* in 1990, with more confidence, and that is the one to see if you only see one. Most critics have been warm about this one, and we are with them, with the small reservation that it is a debut and looks like one. Watch it late, in a quiet room. The jokes are quiet, and at 90 minutes it is over before the manner wears out.

*Fi1m score 76, published 26 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is The Unbelievable Truth worth watching?**

*The Unbelievable Truth* is worth watching for anyone who likes a comedy spoken rather than acted out, and we scored it 76. Hal Hartley has his cast deliver every line flat and even, so a sentence about murder weighs the same as one about a used car, and once you adjust it is the funniest thing in the film. It is a debut and looks like one, but at 90 minutes it stops before the manner wears out.

**How long is The Unbelievable Truth, and what is it rated?**

*The Unbelievable Truth* runs 1h 30m. It is a comedy and drama film.

**Where can I watch The Unbelievable Truth in the Philippines?**

*The Unbelievable Truth* is not on any streaming or rental service in the Philippines at the moment. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is The Unbelievable Truth, and is it suitable for children?**

*The Unbelievable Truth* is rated R in the United States and has no UK certificate, and its adult content is mostly in the talk rather than on screen. Two deaths are discussed constantly and never shown, nobody raises their voice, and there is nothing frightening in it. It is a dry comedy of conversation that would bore most children long before it troubled them; teenagers with patience for deadpan may take to it.

**How does The Unbelievable Truth compare to Stranger Than Paradise?**

*The Unbelievable Truth* and [*Stranger Than Paradise*](https://film.one/film/stranger-than-paradise) are the two founding films of the same flat, deadpan style, and Jarmusch's is the cooler and more assured of the two. Hartley's has more plot and more warmth, and a scene between Josh and Pearl moved us in a way Jarmusch's determined cool never quite manages. Start with Hartley if you want a story, with Jarmusch if you want the mood.

**What should I watch after The Unbelievable Truth?**

After *The Unbelievable Truth*, try [*Trust*](https://film.one/film/trust) (1990, Fi1m 79): Hartley does the same thing again with Shelly and more nerve. Then [*Stranger Than Paradise*](https://film.one/film/stranger-than-paradise) (1984, Fi1m 82): Jarmusch’s flat rooms and flatter talk; the other founding document of this style; and [*Ariel*](https://film.one/film/ariel) (1988, Fi1m 80): Kaurismäki’s ex-convict romance, told with even fewer words and a better car.

### Reviews we read (4)

- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (B+): Tobias sees the film as a minor revelation whose influence and cultural moment have endured, even if Hartley explored its themes more fully in later work. He praises its distinctive offbeat sensibility and deadpan dialogue, which capture a mood of disaffection. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-unbelievable-truth-1798166387)
- **Empire**, Ian Nathan (80/100, inferred): Nathan gives the film a warmly positive verdict, praising its distinctive, dreamy style. He singles out the relaxed performances and Hartley’s seamless blend of humor and small-town observations. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/unbelievable-truth-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Kevin Thomas (70/100, inferred): Thomas finds the film a fresh, antic romantic comedy that ultimately has substance beneath its quirky humor. He praises its concern with how treating relationships as business deals can alienate people. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-08-17-ca-520-story.html)
- **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (64/100, inferred): The available page does not reveal the critic’s verdict. Its headline frames the film around applying 1950s cool to the 1980s. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/20/movies/review-film-applying-1950-s-cool-to-the-80-s.html)

## Details

- **Director:** Hal Hartley
- **Director:** Hal Hartley
- **Writer:** Hal Hartley
- **Cinematography:** Michael Spiller
- **Music:** Jim Coleman
- **Production design:** Carla Gerona
- **Cast:** Adrienne Shelly as Audry; Robert John Burke as Josh; Chris Cooke as Vic Hugo; Julia McNeal as Pearl; Katherine Mayfield as Liz Hugo; Gary Sauer as Emmet; Mark Chandler Bailey as Mike; David Healy as Todd Whitbread
- **Runtime:** 1h 30m
- **First release (the US):** 22 April 1989
- **Genres:** Comedy, Drama, Romance
- **Budget:** $75,000
- **Box office:** $546,541

## Where to watch in the Philippines

Not streaming, renting or buying in the Philippines at the last check.

## If you liked this

- *Trust* (1990), Fi1m 79: Hartley does the same thing again with Shelly and more nerve. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/trust.md)
- *Stranger Than Paradise* (1984), Fi1m 82: Jarmusch’s flat rooms and flatter talk; the other founding document of this style. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/stranger-than-paradise.md)
- *Ariel* (1988), Fi1m 80: Kaurismäki’s ex-convict romance, told with even fewer words and a better car. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ariel.md)
- *Metropolitan* (1990), Fi1m 82: Stillman’s young people talk themselves in circles in Manhattan the same year. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/metropolitan.md)
- *Pauline at the Beach* (1983): Rohmer’s summer of careful sentences and bad decisions, without the murder rumours.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-unbelievable-truth