The Truth About Emanuel
The Truth About Emanuel is as confusing a film as it is a beautiful one.The movie spins a strange tale of 17-year-old Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario) when she forms a unlikely bond with a young mother, Linda (Jessica Biel), who moves in next door. The girl is disturbed by her upcoming birthday, which is also the unhappy anniversary of her mother’s death. Linda is troubled by a mysterious past. The two women each crave what the other can give, the need to fill the mother-daughter starved holes in their lives, and these needs foster a warped codependence based on loneliness and illusion.
Director: Francesca Gregorini
Writers: Francesca Gregorini, Sarah Thorp
Starring: Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario, Alfred Molina, Aneurin Barnard, Frances O’Connor, Jimmi Simpson
Emanuel opens the film with an explanation of her life’s challenge—the fact that her mother died giving her life, and how she has to live with that guilt every day, wishing it were not so.
“It’s me who pays. It’s on my tab. And it accumulates interest with every passing year.”
