true to life

true to life

Consistent with the real world; seeming closer to reality than artifice. Hyphenated if used as a modifier before a noun. His paintings are startlingly true to life. I've always valued making stylistic films over something more true to life. It is a true-to-life story of a young man overcoming adversity.
See also: life, true
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

true to ˈlife

(of a book, film/movie, etc.) seeming real rather than invented: I don’t think the characters are very true to life.
See also: life, true
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

true to life

Conforming to reality.
See also: life, true
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • a round robin
  • round robin
  • eleventh hour
  • heads I win, tails you lose
  • black market
  • a light touch
  • first hand
  • rust bucket
  • good for nothing
  • good-for-nothing
References in periodicals archive
In one scene that could be true to life, a long-term principal dancer resists the restoration of cuts in Gerald Arpino's Suite Saint-Saens, one of the ballets in Goldweber's charge.
D'Erasmo is as much a sociologist as a stylist, and her observations of this particular moment in gay San Francisco are so true to life that you will gasp (or groan) with recognition.
Two true to life stories with an interesting element of travelogue have been released by 1stBooks Library.
In my address, I had to paint a portrait, one that is true to life ...
HOT on TV: C4's Undercover Cops documentary - these gutsy SO10 heroes make BBC1's In Deep series seem as true to life as the Tweenies...
"The treatment of the storyline has been true to life in many respects - the disbelief, the continuing secrecy, and the great distress felt by every member of the family.
A new pounds 58,000 centre with 'true to life' settings for training student nurses and other NHS staff has been launched by Birmingham Specialist Community Health NHS Trust.
Hunter's prose isn't subtle as it preaches male self-reliance and responsibility, but his landscape of characters and their quandaries are sho'nuff true to life.
There are many illustrations that are true to life and serve to prevent smoking by the younger siblings.
That evil path eventually leads to the player's self-destruction--a fate true to life, says Andrew Lunstad, one of the two developers of the game.
Some of the most famous Western parables are in the New Testament; in them, Jesus illustrates his message to his followers by telling a fictitious story that is nevertheless true to life.
Every last one is entirely a product of Steinberg's wizardry, of an imagination in hot pursuit of the bizarre effect which unexpectedly turns out to be true to life. Indeed, a good cartoon--especially a good Modernist cartoon, in which modernisms have turned into mannerisms--always involves the exact, acute observation of reality.
For people who think Nin and Miller were two of the silliest humans ever to draw breath, the movie will seem startlingly true to life. For people whose hunger for inadvertent humor is quickly sated, Henry and June will seem endless.
South Miami, FL, May 29, 2014 --(PR.com)-- An innovative new product designed to serve as an improved version of a conventional mannequin typically used for artistic studies, print and visual animation creation, and video game development, the True To Life Professional Mannequin, has been developed by Simora Parker of Detroit, Michigan.
IT'S come to something when even the Garda Commissioner claims TV series Love/Hate is true to life.