Ms Honesty (1995)

D. Michael Lehmann
Colour

One of Jennifer Aniston’s first wild flails at turning her distinctly small screen charms into cinema success, was this oddly conceived, frustrating and actually quite infuriating little number. Ms Aniston plays Ms Honesty (Tracey Honesty, if you’re on familiar terms) who has a compulsion to always tell the truth. It doesn’t matter what the circumstance, how politic is it, or what offence she might cause, Ms Honesty cannot keep her honest mouth shut. Now an eight year old knows why a white lie exists, yet the fact that Ms Honesty doesn’t know and is so brutally honest is seen by the film as a loveable quirk. Her friends all adore her and her unfiltered opinions, strangers on the street are charmed by her frankness and her life glides by on a stream of happiness.

What’s even weirder than hanging a film around the shoulders of this guileless child woman who everyone loves, is that some of these ‘truths’ are really just a matter of taste (the clothes someone wears, for example), and when they aren’t immediately accepted with good grace, Ms Honestly has something of a meltdown. There are two such scenes in the film, both of which see Ms Honesty ranting and raving about the flaws of the person opposite her, furious that her opinion isn’t being immediately accepted. To be fair, Ms Aniston does manage to portray a truly psychotic bitch really well, but the film clearly doesn’t see her behaviour in those terms. Instead this ranting and raving is a good thing, a sign of at how intensely passionate she is.

I ask you, really?

Surely freaking out completely when someone doesn’t immediately agree with you (or even does agree with you, but has decided they are not going to alter their life just over one woman’s opinion), is surely the behaviour of someone mentally ill. No sane and rational person would feel the need to start screaming abuse at someone they knew (or didn’t know) just because that person doesn’t happen to share their opinion. It’s what a lunatic would do, an insane person, a – to use one of my dad’s West Country expression – barnpot.

And yet the film sets it up as somewhat charming, easily forgivable – enviable even. Ms Honesty just cares too much; is so passionate and only says these truths because they are in the other person’s interests (even when they’re clearly not) and besides she‘s as cute as the twenty-five year old Jennifer Aniston – so what’s not to love? And that’s the true message of this film, that Ms Aniston is really pretty and her character is the ultimate manic pixie dream girl we should all adore.  But it didn’t work on me. I just felt the urge to scream and pelt her with rotten fruit.

The plot – such as it is – sees Ms Honesty (is the title supposed to be a pun btw?) telling some home truths to her friend, Jason Lee. When these aren’t immediately accepted, she freaks out and tells him every bad thing about himself. They fight for a few weeks, then they calm down, realise that they’re in love with each other and live happily ever after – Ms Honesty keeping up with her honest ways.

Meanwhile the audience is left giddily disorientated and throwing up in corner.

If you want to know the real truth, this is one of the most disturbing and blood-boiling pieces of celluloid it has ever been my misfortune to witness.