Posts Tagged ‘Sundance’

Directed and Starring Joshua Leonard (Blair Witch Project), The Lie shows us the life of Lonnie (Leonard) and how he feels stuck in a rut. He’s a married man with a six month old little girl and realizes his life isn’t the way he quite pictured it. On whim he decides to call into work and tell his boss he can’t make it into work because his daughter is sick. He then goes out and plays “hooky” for the day and enjoys himself. He enjoys himself so much that he decides to do it again the next day but scrambles for an excuse while on the phone and tells his boss his 6 month old daughter died the previous night. He starts to gain sympathy from everyone around him because of this lie and somewhat enjoys the benefits a tad. What comes next is a journey of regret and self discovery as a husband and father.

It has an interesting premise and that’s what attracted me to this flick. The acting is fair and it has a well rounded cast. The filmmakers did a good job at excluding the lie from any synopsis or description because I don’t think I would’ve sat through it if I would’ve known. It was kind of off-putting to know that even after Lonnie told the lie he kind of just went along with it. I’m not one to be appalled by subject matter in a film or anything of that nature. I think that if it serves a purpose to help the story along then fine but I think this was done just to get the cheap “shock” factor in. It worked to a certain degree but not in the way they probably wanted or expected. Although the underlining message was understandable, the rest of the film felt like a long complaint letter about the characters’ life thus far. I would say, if you’re curious then go right ahead and give it a view but other than that you should wait till it hits IFC at 2am and DVR it.