Girl You Know It's True (film)

Girl You Know It's True is a 2023 Biopic about Milli Vanilli, a late-80s to early 90s Franco-German music duo who shot to fame for their pop-rap/R&B hits but later gained notoriety as the ones behind one of the biggest pop music scandals of all time.

The film dramatises the tragic tale of Fabrice "Fab" Morvan, who hails from Paris but came to Germany in search of opportunities, and Robert "Rob" Pilatus, a German model and dancer of African-American descent. Rob and Fab met in Munich where they worked together as breakdancers and were discovered by Frank Farian, the producer behind notable acts such as Boney M. of "Rasputin" fame among others. Soon enough, they were on top of the world, breaking Billboard charts and making appearances on MTV as the hot new deal, but there was a catch: Rob and Fab were roped in as lip-syncing performance artists, and the real singers were actually the ones performing behind the scenes as Farian felt their stage presence wasn't marketable. It didn't take long for rumours to spring up questioning the duo's singing abilities; their thick accents and limited command of English were seen as a red flag by some who noticed cracks in the façade. Session singer Charles Shaw tried to expose Frank Farian's deception in a statement, but as Frank himself explained in the film, he hushed Charles up from revealing the truth. Eventually, pressure from both the public and the duo themselves forced Farian to reveal the truth: Milli Vanilli was a fraud and a circus act; they didn't sing their songs, and they were forced to return their awards as a gesture of apology. This soon turned the group into both a laughing stock and a scapegoat by the American public who felt cheated and deceived by their act.

• Artistic License - History:
  • The film focuses more on the duo's fateful tale and not subsequent projects under the Milli Vanilli brand without Rob and Fab's involvement ("The Real Milli Vanilli" and "Try 'N' B"). It also glossed over their attempted acting gigs (including the infamous The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 celebrity guest appearance and the Carefree gum commercial where they parodied the ordeal at their expense) as well as the unsuccessful "Rob & Fab" comeback attempt, though they did indirectly mention the aborted production of Back and in Attack which was to be released in 1998 but was cancelled following the death of Pilatus.
  • The infamous record skipping scene also plays out somewhat differently. In the film when the song glitched out, Rob paused in shock and ran off backstage, while in reality they still mimed and did a few dance moves in an effort to contain the damage, but soon ran off in humiliation.
• Book-Burning: Fed up by the deceit, groups of disgruntled fans organised record burnings in protest of the deception involving Milli Vanilli.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Rob, Fab and even Frank stop to address the audience at certain points in the film, explaining to the viewer what is going on at that moment and how they got there. In the case of the duo themselves, their narration continues even after Rob passes away; it is initially left unexplained as to how Fab interacted beside Rob since then, though the end scene shows the two actually at a film set.
• Broke Episode: We see the duo fall on hard times following the lip-sync scandal, where they were forced to give up their mansion and Ferrari in exchange for living in a more spartan apartment.
  • Even more so with a disheveled Rob roaming the seedy corners of Los Angeles, where prostitutes and other passers-by taunt the now-disgraced singer over his misfortunes.
• Broken Record: The now-infamous MTV concert scene where the record containing their playback vocals glitched out.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Rob Pilatus. Born to an African-American serviceman and a German dancer and was put up for adoption early in his childhood. His past went back at him when a man who introduced himself as his biological father wrote a letter and began conversing with him regularly, only for their reunion to fall apart when Rob sensed something wrong with his "father", who turned out to be a fraudster seeking to leech off of Rob's fortunes. This sadly contributed to Rob's descent to depression and substance abuse which led to his untimely death.
• Dreadful Musician: Farian felt that the two boys could not sing for real, in spite of Rob and Fab's attempts at convincing their producer to let them prove themselves to the world.^[1]
• The Eighties: Where the majority of the film's events take place, especially during the height of the duo's career.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Farian was indeed a shady character towards the duo and to their leagues of (former) fans, he did at least try to help Rob out in order to get his life back on track, even going so far as to bailing him out of jail and paying for Rob's rehab program.
• Expy: Stefania, the singer whom Rob and Fab performed with when they first met, is loosely based on Italian pop star Sabrina Salerno (who gained notoriety for the hit single "Boys (Summertime Love)", particularly the sexually charged music video where she does what amounts to a striptease). The fictional song "Hot Boys" is a reference of both the aforementioned "Boys" and "Hot Girls".
• Fake Band: There was a real band doing the singing and rapping but it was all behind the scenes; Rob and Fab were presented as the frontmen as the actual session singers did not look marketable enough in Farian's eyes.
• The Fifties: The opening chapter of the film shows a brief glimpse of Frank Farian's childhood in postwar West Germany circa 1953, where the young Frank^[2] is seen digging up root crops at a village with her mother and chances upon a truck filled with what appears to be American troops stationed in the country blaring Rock and Roll music, which inspired Farian to take up a musical career.
• First Law of Tragicomedies: The film tends to get a little cheeky at times, and as such Rob and Fab narrate their lives in an occasionally self-deprecating tone. Even Farian's own narration has shades of this as well.
• Foregone Conclusion: Milli Vanilli gets outed as a fraud and a scam, and Rob Pilatus sadly passes away from a drug overdose.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Rob and Fab shot to fame as the latest music sensations, but fell from grace once they were exposed as frauds. To be completely fair they were entrapped into a predatory contract as frontmen for the project; the duo tried in vain to convince their superiors to let them sing for once.
• How We Got Here: Rob and Fab narrate how things have led to the point they were in at what appears to be a trashed hotel room. It turns out to be a film set where the two lead actors lament the tragedy that befell the duo whilst in-character.
• Idol Singer: Rob and Fab were chosen to serve as the frontmen for the group as Farian saw them to be more marketable regardless of their singing ability.
• Misblamed: The film paints a more sympathetic portrayal of the duo, who were caught up by a manipulative record producer whose gimmick was manufactured pop music acts who were more about the glam and marketable stage image than actual talent. Rob and Fab did make an effort to hone their musical skills (something which Fab continues to this day; his road towards critical reappraisement by the public is an interesting story on its own as he managed to prove his haters wrong and get back at least some of the spotlight he lost) but the damage has been done since then.
• Music Is Politics: A central theme of the film, where sugary, mass-market pop music rests above a seedy underbelly of deception, vice and scandal.
• Never Live It Down: The lip-syncing scandal, pretty much.
• The Nineties: Rob and Fab's fall from grace takes place shortly after the turn of the decade, where they go broke soon after. Fab manages to move on and salvage his reputation over time, but Rob bears more of the brunt and falls down into a spiral of petty crime and substance abuse which led to his untimely death.
• Sanity Slippage: Rob following the lip-syncing scandal. He winds up becoming a bum and had to be bailed out by Farian. It also did not help that Rob came from a rough background, having been orphaned since he was a child: he was born out of wedlock to an African-American serviceman in Munich and a German mother, and was put under adoption since then.
• The Seventies: Following a brief glimpse of Farian's childhood, the scene shifts to him at the recording studio spearheading production of his disco projects.
• Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll: With their newfound fame also came in booze, groupies and snorting lines. This eventually took a toll on Rob who passed away from a combination overdose.
• Tear Jerker: The film shows Fab sobbing beside his now-deceased friend, lamenting how things could have turned out right for the two.
• Title Drop: As it is named after their Signature Song, "Girl You Know It's True" is mentioned several times in the film.
• The Trap Parents: Rob receives a letter from what appears to be his biological father, and they began to converse frequently. However, when Rob hears from his "dad" that he needed $60,000 for his half-brother's college fees, Rob senses something was up, and confronts him over the phone as to where in Munich was he stationed in; the conman who posed as his "father" was unable to answer Rob's question correctly and was never heard since then. This hurt Rob greatly, and unfortunately contributed to his depression and eventual demise.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Farian when he confesses to reporters that the band was a hoax all along, leaving Milli Vanilli's star status in shambles.