Harry Wootliff's feature debut, Only You, is a wonderful example of a writer-director balancing elements of romantic melodrama and psychological thrillers in a film powered by modern gothic passions. It's a disturbingly seductive portrayal of manipulation and deceit that gets right under the skin of its main character, brilliantly played by Ruth Wilson, who walks. Wilson's low-key performance takes us deep inside her character's dreams, desires and insecurities, as she engages the audience on a visceral level.
Kate is a thirtysomething daydreamer who is just about holding down a job at a benefits office in Ramsgate. Kate flirtatiously throws caution to the wind when Tom Burke cockily asks what she is doing for lunch, and soon finds herself in an erotic car-park encounter that is as thrilling as it is risky. Like Kate, we don't know much about her new lover, who she calls Blond, but whose particulars remain enigmatically vague. Kate becomes instantly addicted to his unpredictable attentions, craving his calls and his company, and infatuated with his presence, all the more so in his frustratingly frequent absence.
Kate's friends and family are suspicious of Alison, who has been trying to fix Kate up with a suitable partner. This interloper is a bad decision for Alison because it has overtaken the needy Kate's life and clouded her senses. The possibility that a better, more exciting life awaits Kate, just beyond her reach, is renewed whenever he reappears.
There’s something of the fairytale wolf about Burke’s words, as if he were preparing to eat her
True Things is described as a cautionary tale of a destructive sexual relationship that is both complex and ordinary. The appeal of the film is that it explores the sense of self of a woman through relationships. Anyone who has ever defined themselves through the eyes of others or sought self-esteem through romance will be aware of Kate's situation. Kate is both a passive observer and active agent in circumstances beyond her control because of the tension at the heart of True Things. Even though her passion devours her, it still drives her to distraction.
Burke seems to channel the spirit of Oliver Reed, investing his character with a blend of animal magnetism and fear of intimacy that feeds hungrily upon Kate. There is something of a fairytale wolf about his words when he tells her. Like Red Riding Hood, Kate is more than she seems to be.
In Only You, Josh O'Connor and Laia Costa danced to the anguished strains of Elvis Costello's I Want You in a scene that showcased the ability to tell a story through movement and music. In True Things, Dance plays a crucial role, as PJ Harvey's Rid of Me soundtracks a defining scene of character-driven choreography in which Wootliff and Wilson work in perfect harmony with the cinematographer. Alex Baranowski's plucked, processed sounds create a sonic backdrop that perfectly captures Kate's anxiously evolving spirit, simultaneously evoking impending catastrophe and ecstatic escape.
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