The Truth About Jane

Much of The Truth About Jane is queer wish fulfillment. This surprised me given that The Truth About Jane is a Lifetime TV movie. The fact that this TV movie from the year 2000 does centralize its young, queer character is a huge point in the movie’s favour. But at the end of the day, it’s still a Lifetime TV movie and wish fulfillment doesn’t always lead to the strongest storytelling.

Jane has the kind of overbearing mother who always imagined that her daughter would see her not just as a mother, but as a best friend. Like most teenagers, this isn’t exactly how Jane perceives her mother, Janice. Instead, her new best friend is the new girl in school, Taylor. But it’s more than friendship Jane feels. She and Taylor kiss, and Jane has her first sexual experience with her. After someone witnesses her kiss Taylor, a rumour goes around that Jane’s a lesbian. When it reaches Jane’s parents, Jane decides to confirm the rumour and comes out to her parents. Her father takes it pretty well. But Janice, Jane’s supposed mother/best friend struggles heavily with the idea of having a gay daughter.

The first half of The Truth About Jane is stronger than I expected. For one, I didn’t imagine the film would actually have Jane as the protagonist and point of view character. Because of Lifetime’s assumed audience, I would’ve thought that Janice would be the audience conduit into the story. I do really applaud the film and the network for avoiding that path. Focusing on Jane makes this heavily cliche coming out story pack a lot more punch. This is very much a movie made by a queer person. And at least at first, the film really impressed me with how it had both insight into the queer experience while also being presented in a format that might appeal to middle American mothers.

Part of the strength in the first half is several pretty decent dialogue scenes that are definitely wish fulfillment. You know when you imagine winning an argument in your head with salient points and bullet-proof logic? It’s very that. Multiple scenes of Jane or the other gay character, Jimmy (played by Rupaul) making these eloquent, emotional, powerful speeches about acceptance and understanding. So many of these scenes have lines of dialogue I think a lot of queer people imagine saying to someone homophobic. And there is catharsis in seeing such words onscreen and written and performed at a level you’d probably never achieve in real life.

Despite impassioned pleas from her daughter and Rupaul, Janice continues to be homophobic. The film’s second half deals more with her slow journey to acceptance. And this half is less successful. Or, maybe it’s just less enjoyable. I didn’t love watching Stockard Channing consistently claim to love her daughter while being awful to her. This second half also crams in a lot of potential ostracism and other negative experiences a gay teen might have in 2000. It’s not that any are particularly unlikely or even poorly handled. But there’s so many of them in this 90 minute movie that it feels a bit like the movie is playing the hits. But in this case, the hits are depressing experiences for young gay people. These moments all have tragedy and power. But because there’s not enough time to focus on any of them individually, none hit as hard as they could.

In the last act of the film, Janice makes an effort to tray and accept Jane. And this bit didn’t work for me. Her journey to acceptance is depicted in a series of key emotional scenes meant to span a length of time. So, we’re only getting the highlights. And even with her increased acceptance, it’s rarely enough. I do applaud the film for again centring Jane in this. For all that Janice claims it’s hard for her, the film offers her much less sympathy than it does her daughter, for whom it’s much harder for. Sure, Janice willingly goes with Jane to a PFLAG meeting. But by her own admittance, she’s faking her acceptance until the very last scene in the movie. And with such a story arc, the last scene suggesting that Janice now supports her gay daughter feels hollow and unearned.

The Truth About Jane is more progressive than I expected. This is a TV movie from the year 2000 whose audience likely had more in common with the mother, Janice than with Jane. Writer/director Lee Rose made a movie where she got to say so much stuff she’d always imagined saying, all while making an impassioned plea to its audience for acceptance. But again, this is a Lifetime TV movie. And the wish fulfillment aspect is uneven. Trying to fit cathartic, queer wish fulfillment into a Lifetime TV movie-shaped box further exacerbates some of the issues with both aspects. And all in all, this is one of those TV movies that’s really not shooting for the stars when it comes to visuals, ambition or being a lasting, memorable work.

Overall rating: 5.5/10

Other WLW films in similar genres