Did you ever heard about Michael Finkel? The infamous journalist, who was fired in 2002 from his freelancer position at The Times Magazine and New York Times. The reason of the release was faking a story, named “Is Youssouf Malé a Slave?”, about the pain and problems of African plantation worker.

After the disgrace Finkel decided to fight for his professional pride. The fate connected him with a brutal murderer Christian Longo, who killed his wife and three children in December 2001. The criminal became fugitive, and during those times he used the name of the New York Times reporter Michael Finkel while running in Mexico.

Michael Finkel

The true journalist connected with Longo, who wanted to tell his story of the murder before the trail. At the end he gave exclusive interview to Michael Finkel, admitting his crime.

Longo

The entire real life experience by the journalist became a book in May 2005. The edition was called True Story: Murder, Memoire, Mea Culpa. Harper published the book and according to the reports the author received $500 000 in advance to write it.

In 2006 True Story was nominated for Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. The readers valuated the story with average 4.2 stars in Amazon from 67 reviews. “You need to read this book”, “True Story is well written, engrossing and honest”, “Michael Finkel does a masterful job” are some of the opinions for the memoire.

Brad Pitt’s company Plan B Entertainment brought the rights to film True Story. English director Rupert Goold debuted in the big screen with very strong cast including Oscar nominees James Franco, Jonah Hill and Felicity Jones.

Jonah Hill

The movie is set for limited release on April 17. It was shown initially on Sundance Film Festival in January. The first impression of those who saw the movie is huge applause. The current IMDB rating is one of the highest ones in the recent months – 8.3/10. Rotten tomatoes added 6.2 average rating with Metacritic is set a score of 63%.

It seems that problems with distribution cut out the world wide spread of the film. For now just four countries brought the production. For those who are interested and can’t wait for the official release – check out the book.

Take a look at others Book to Movie Adaptation articles:

The Longest Ride
The Water Diviner
The Hunger Games
Divergent Trilogy
Gone Girl
American Sniper
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Unbroken
Fifty Shades of Gray
The Gunman