''Cinema Verite'' is a 2011 HBO drama film directed by

Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini Shari Springer Berman (born July 13, 1963) and Robert Pulcini (born August 24, 1964) are an American team of filmmakers. Biographies Both Springer Berman and Pulcini were born in New York, New York. Springer Berman graduated from Wesleyan Univ ...

. The film's main

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast t ...

starred

Diane Lane Diane Colleen Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at age 14 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film '' A Little Romance''. The two films that could have catapulted her to st ...

Tim Robbins Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film '' The Shawshank Redemption ''(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his role ...

James Gandolfini James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. (; September 18, 1961 – June 19, 2013) was an American actor. For his role as Tony Soprano, the Italian-American Mafia crime boss in HBO's television series '' The Sopranos'', he won three Emmy Awards, five Scree ...

and Patrick Fugit. The film follows a fictionalized account of the production of ''

An American Family ''An American Family'' is an American television documentary series that followed the life of a California family in the early 1970s. Widely referred to as the first example of an American reality TV show, the series drew millions of weekly vie ...

'', a 1973

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

documentary television series that is said to be one of the earliest examples of the

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

genre. Principal photography was completed in Southern California. The film premiered on April 23, 2011.

Plot synopsis

The film begins in 1971 with Craig Gilbert (James Gandolfini) discussing with Pat Loud (Diane Lane) the idea of a documentary series that would concern her family's day-to-day lives in Santa Barbara, CA. Pat considers the proposal and accepts, amidst her son Lance (Thomas Dekker) moving to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Pat's husband Bill (Tim Robbins) travels often away on business, leaving his wife alone to care for their five children. The crew (Patrick Fugit, Shanna Collins) moves in with the Louds and begins to document them. Relations between Pat and Bill grow frayed due to his time away and the stress of the TV show's production. Gilbert tells Pat of his suspicions surrounding Bill's trips away, giving fairly strong evidence that he is cheating on her. The crew fights with Gilbert about his documentary technique, as he makes them film many personal moments. After surreptitiously duplicating the keys to Bill's office, Pat makes a late night trip to the office and discovers documents that confirm he is cheating on Pat with two other women, resulting in Pat's preparations to file for a divorce. Angry, she tells Gilbert to have cameras there when she tells Bill, wanting "his bimbos to see it, the whole world to see it." Against her wishes, he films Pat's conversation with her brother and his wife. Pat begins to regret her decision to let Gilbert film the break up, and tries to get one of her sons to tell him while driving Bill home instead. He, however, does not work up the courage to do this, and Pat kicks Bill out of her home on camera. The film cuts to one year later, when ''An American Family'' is experiencing its premiere. The show airs to strong television ratings but much criticism of members of the family, in particular Pat for how she came off on camera and Lance for his

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

. The family then gets together to "fight back", addressing their critics by appearing on many talk shows.

Title cards In films, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (i.e., ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as "dialo ...

at film's end offer updates for each Loud family member. Lance died of AIDS-related hepatitis in 2001; his last wish for his parents was to cohabitate. They currently live together in Los Angeles.

Cast

as Pat Loud *

as Bill Loud *

as Craig Gilbert *

Kathleen Quinlan Kathleen Denise Quinlan Abbott (born November 19, 1954) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1977 film of the novel '' I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,'' and her Golden ...

as Mary * Thomas Dekker as Lance Loud * Patrick Fugit as Alan Raymond * Shanna Collins as Susan Raymond *

Willam Belli Willam Belli (, born June 30, 1982), mononymously known as Willam, is an American drag queen, actor, singer-songwriter, reality television personality, author, and YouTuber. Willam came to prominence as a contestant on the fourth season of ' ...

as Candy Darling *

Lolita Davidovich Lolita Davidovich ( sr-Latn, Lolita Davidović, italic=unset; born July 15, 1961) is a Canadian-born film and television actress, best known for portraying Blaze Starr in the 1989 film '' Blaze'', for which she received a Chicago Film Critics A ...

as Valerie *

Kyle Riabko Kyle Riabko (born 29 September 1987) is a Canadian musician, composer and actor from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Before starring on Broadway in both '' Spring Awakening'' and '' Hair'', Kyle released a full-length album of original music on Colu ...

Jackie Curtis Jackie Curtis (February 19, 1947 – May 15, 1985) was an American actress, writer, singer, and Warhol superstar. Early life and career Jackie Curtis was born in New York City to John Holder and Jenevive Uglialoro. She had one sibling, half-b ...

Kaitlyn Dever Kaitlyn Rochelle Dever (; born December 21, 1996) is an American actress. She gained recognition for her roles in the FX crime drama television series '' Justified'' (2011–2015), the ABC/Fox sitcom '' Last Man Standing'' (2011–2021), the Ne ...

as Michelle Loud * Nick Eversman as Grant Loud * Johnny Simmons as Kevin Loud * Caitlin Custer as Delilah Loud *

Jake Richardson Jacob Matthew Richardson (born February 20, 1985) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the film '' Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves'' and the series '' Fudge''. Career Richardson landed his first acting role in 1995 at the ...

as Tommy Goodwin

Production

Principal photography was completed primarily in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

. The film is presented in chapters, with chapter titles such as ''The Chelsea'' and ''The Battle for the Camera Begins''. When the chapter titles are shown, short clips from the original 1973 documentary are shown alongside in split screen format.

Critical reception

''Cinema Verite'' met with a positive reception from television critics. On

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Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

the film received a "generally positive" score of 74 out of 100, based on 23 reviews.

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series 2011 drama films 2011 television films 2011 films American LGBT-related films Films about television Films based on television series Films directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini Films shot in California HBO Films films LGBT-related films based on actual events Films scored by Rolfe Kent 2011 LGBT-related films American drama television films 2010s American films