Girl You Know It’s True Movie Review (2023)

When preteen me saw that there was a film about Milli Vanilli, she knew that she had to watch it. Neither she nor I was disappointed, Girl You Know It’s True was so much fun!

When Milli Vanilli came out in the late 1980s, I was a fan. I had bought their tape and I was among the generation that was there when MTV became a thing. I was a preteen and it was all I could do to hit the record button on my VCR so that I could watch my favorite videos over and over again.

But when the news about Milli Vanilli exploded onto the news networks overnight, it was shocking. I remember my little brother grabbing my tape and hiding it somewhere in the house, fearing that I would be among the fans to destroy the music that we loved. I had no intention of doing that, of course, but I remember it all so clearly.

Girl You Know It’s True is a semi-satirical biopic about Milli Vanilli. It is not a documentary (as I thought it would be when I hit play), but a retelling of the entire experience of the band through the eyes of Rob and Fab, the lead… performers. Milli Vanilli was founded by Frank Farian, a producer who created a project out of real singers, professional musicians, and two (young and naïve) beautiful dancers (without real support systems), and sent something new into the universe. In this film, recreated Rob and Fab discuss what they went through, how they got sucked into the project, who they were involved with, and what became of all of them.

This was a fantastic experience. I loved it so much, I can’t even put it into words. The entire film is in on its own joke – that all of it was all a bunch of different truths and stories tangled into a ball and released to the public.

The actors who play Rob and Fab are charming and bewitching. You just want to sit on the couch and gaze at them for a while. They each have a glint in their eye and they know what happened. They know their truth. They’re just going to roll it out for you.

You meet the real singers and musicians through the narration of the shaggy producer (all of whom are incredibly talented, somewhat dowdy, and not cut out of stars like Rob and Fab), who asks, “But honestly, would you have bought our T-shirts? Would we have been MTV material?”

He makes an excellent point that I had never thought of before. Rob and Fab were handsome and talented, but they weren’t singers, even though they were desperate to sing. It all makes sense in a strange and demented way, and I never knew any of it.

The entire film is shot like an 80s music video. Loud colors and patterns, shocking frames with motion, and music and lyrics that creep out from the recesses of your brain. Or was that just me?

I am not sure if I can say that Girl You Know It’s True is great cinema in the context of something like Lord of the Rings, but it is an excellent time. It is so funny and charming. Characters talk to the screen while they tell you the story, and, the bottom line is, it just made me happy.

I didn’t watch the ending credits performance montage 5 times, you did.

Runtime: 123 minutes

Motion Picture Rating: Not Rated (I’d put it around PG-13 for minor drug use and language)

Languages Spoken In The Film: English, German, and French with English subtitles

Should You Watch It? Yes, totally

Did I Cry? Nope

My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Available: Free on Peacock, to rent on Prime Video, or may be available for free on other streaming platforms