The Tale (2018)

Laura Dern gives a riveting performance in The Tale (2018), an HBO Original Movie about the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Dern stars as Jennifer, a successful and accomplished documentarian who receives a concerned call from her mother (Ellen Burstyn) who has rediscovered an essay Jennifer wrote in high school. There are certain implications made in the essay which suggest that relationships Jennifer had with her riding instructor (Elizabeth Debicki) and running coach (Jason Ritter) were far more nefarious than her mother had realized at the time. Jennifer is confused because she only has fond memories of those two mentors from her formative years, but as she replays certain events from her childhood, she begins to realize that she may have sugar coated actual events that happened in order to survive. Now that Jennifer is working on a documentary about survivors of abuse in childhood, she must finally confront the truth, even if it means reevaluating everything she knows about herself and her life. The film asks some tough questions about the nature of truth and the lengths we go to as human beings to shelter ourselves from trauma, so it's not exactly a good time kind of movie where everyone leaves with a spring in their step and a song in their heart. There's also no nudity to speak of in the flick, though we do get two sexy scenes of Laura Dern in a bra and undies with her on-screen lover Common, as well as a bikinied Elizabeth Debicki in a flashback! Now that's a Tale worth telling!