The Unbelievable Truth (1989) review

Hartley's feature debut has precocious high school student Audry (Adrienne Shelly) - who got into Harvard but is mixed about going (she's also preoccupied with the end of the world) - forming a crush on released convict Josh (Robert John Burke) who is working as a mechanic (and doesn't have any experience with women).  Like many of Hal's films that would follow it, this pretty detached from reality (who gets let out of prison for not one but two murders that quickly?) and glib to the extreme - it's a little off-putting (and tedious in parts) but the technique would work most wonderfully in some of his later films (specifically Trust a year later ... and Henry Fool after that).  To paraphrase Godard - a clear influence - all he needed to make this was Ms. Shelly and a wrench.