Girl You Know It's True

To the writers, producers, and storytellers of Girl You Know It's True:

First, thank you.

I came into this film expecting to revisit the pop scandal of my youth-Milli Vanilli, the Grammy, the lip-syncing, the fall. That was the version of the story the world fed me back then. I loved the music. I believed, like many others, that we'd all been duped.

But what I watched was not a scandal.

It was a tragedy.

A human one.

And one that hit me harder than I ever expected.

What you gave us wasn't just the truth behind the band- You gave us Rob Pilatus, the person behind the image.

And as an adoptee, I recognized that boy immediately.

When Rob said,

"I knew why they adopted me. They had something to prove," it was like someone reached into my chest and gripped my heart.

That was not a throwaway line. That was a life sentence.

A truth that every adopted person I know understands too well.

And that brings me to what I need to say:

This film should have included a trigger warning.

You gave us suicide. You gave us addiction. You gave us exploitation.

But the part that broke me-and that will break countless adoptees who watch this-came without a whisper of caution:

The portrayal of Rob's adoption trauma.

You showed the way he was abandoned, shaped, discarded, and ultimately destroyed by a system and a society that never saw the child behind the performance. And of course, as so often happens in real life-the adoptee is the one who dies in the end. The one who carries the most pain. The one who is never allowed to fully heal.

We live in an era where even fictional stories are prefaced with content warnings.

But this? This was a real story.

And you told it well. So well that it triggered something ancient and agonizing in me.

What I want the world to understand is this:

You think adopted children are "better off." You think we're lucky.

You think we're saved.

But unless you've been through it, you'll never truly grasp what it feels like to be

removed from your roots

stripped of origin and story

used as proof of someone else's goodness

and then asked to smile for the camera and be grateful.

Rob was a brilliant, broken, beautiful soul who never got the closure he deserved.

He was a boy who wanted to be seen.

And he died trying.

So again, I say thank you.

Because you told his story.

You honored his pain.

And now, I will honor it too.

But let this be a reminder to Hollywood, to storytellers, to audiences:

Adoptees are not props.

We are not plot twists.

We are not here to be tragic and then disappear.

We are still here.

We are still carrying it.

And some of us-like Rob-don't survive it.

Let his story stay with you.

Because it will never leave me.

Sincerely, Catherine An adoptee A witness A survivor And now-one voice louder.

Not bad! I hadn't expected that. I would even attest to the international standard of the production. A brisk production, an interesting story, of course, that's what it was, but with a few shortcomings in the acting. An entertaining biopic designed to entertain.

Of course Schweighöfer is, as always, a minus point at first, but that neutralises itself at some point. Either you get used to his eternally identical performance over the course of the film or he finds his way into the role quite well. He's always got a mischievous side to him and somehow can't be taken seriously.

As I said, the story is a self-runner. Exciting, tragic, sometimes simply unbelievable. A wonderful journey through time.

This is by far the best movie I've seen in 2024 so far. I loved watching them explore how exploitative and fake the music industry can be.

It's a shame that the movie didn't get much of an audience outside Germany. I'm actually blown away that the studio never distributed the film in the US, despite the subject matter being so relevant.

My friend and I are Americans living in Berlin and we rented this film on Amazon Prime last night. Surprisingly, there were no English subtitles available, so we needed to use Google Translate for all of the moments when the actors were speaking german. This was a real shame!

Took us about 4 hours to get through and luckily we do speak a little German. We used it as a fun exercise to improve our vocabulary, but I could see this being a major turn-off for other viewers.

I have watched documentaries about the Milli Vanilli scandal previously so I thought I knew the story but film tells the story in a fresh, enlightening, engaging and emotional way. It reveals details that I didn't know about the actual performers and writers of the group's hits.

The period attention to detail in the sets, clothes and soundtrack takes those of us old enough right back to to 80s but this film should also be engaging to younger audiences who have never heard of Milli Vanilli. The themes around in the pursuit of fame, exploitation by the entertainment industry and lack of post fame support are just as relevant in today's world of reality TV shows, social media and talent contests. Well with watching. Note that some dialogue is in German and French with subtitles.

For a low-budget music biopic, this film makes a compelling watch in part because the story of Rob and Fab says a great deal about the artifice of the music industry and the fleeting nature of fame. It's absolutely and rightfully sympathetic to its main characters, who got swept into a fraud that got bigger and more elaborate than anyone expected. The performances are excellent, and the director makes some intriguing choices, especially toward the end of the film. Whether you are old enough to remember the scandal or know nothing, it's a film that should keep most viewers engaged. Also, the friendship between Rob and Fab, provides real heart to the story.

All the main actors also look eerily like the real people they are playing, so kudos to the casting director.