There are good bits in Where the Truth Lies that give you an insight into what the film could have been, but they are too sparse to salvage this confusing and ultimately implausible thriller.
Fans of Atom Egoyan's work will relish the chance to see him in action again, but it is Egoyan himself, as both scriptwriter and director, who ruins what could have been an intelligent whodunnit.
It is worth going into the plot to explain exactly why it doesn't work.
Alison Lohman plays a former polio sufferer and journalist who, years after she appeared on a telethon featuring a pair of variety stars, decides to write a book about what they are really like. The big draw is that the pair, played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon, split shortly after the show when the body of a girl was found in their hotel room. The crime was never solved.
Colin Firth, the straight half of the variety partnership, agrees to cooperate, but Kevin Bacon declines because he is writing his own book to be released after their deaths.
Despite Bacon's reluctance - and this is important - Bacon's representatives allow Lohman to read several chapters of Bacon's book to show her that her work would be rubbish by comparison. They do what? What publisher, in the real world, would attempt to dissuade a rival by sharing information?
This is the first of a string of implausible plot developments that gnaw at the viewer's will to suspend disbelief and, in my case, consume it completely.
Other elements - confrontations between Lohman, Bacon and Firth and an all-too-convenient tape recording - fail to ring true. Although the denouement is rather poignant, the drama has long since become preposterous. I was still chortling to myself because of a previous scene in which a character does an unwitting impression of Hannibal Lecter. And what on earth is going on when a children's hospital hosts a production of Alice in Wonderland with a woman singing a trippy version of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit?
The acting isn't bad - indeed Firth and Bacon are rather good - but it fails to make an unlikely script appear anything but contrived and, occasionally, unintentionally funny.
It doesn't help that the film is told in a confusing series of flashbacks, some of which didn't happen at all. Egoyan attempts to overcome the confusion by adding lots of explanatory voice-overs, but this also acts as a reminder that the images do not do the talking.
And what of the supposedly controversial scenes that earned the film such a high rating from the censors? Well, there's graphic violence, drug taking and, without wanting to spoil anything, sex scenes that wouldn't appear in a standard Hollywood film. But, really, so what? The controversy is a red herring. The film doesn't work, and it is Egoyan who is to blame.
Fans of Atom Egoyan's work will relish the chance to see him in action again, but it is Egoyan himself, as both scriptwriter and director, who ruins what could have been an intelligent whodunnit.
It is worth going into the plot to explain exactly why it doesn't work.
Alison Lohman plays a former polio sufferer and journalist who, years after she appeared on a telethon featuring a pair of variety stars, decides to write a book about what they are really like. The big draw is that the pair, played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon, split shortly after the show when the body of a girl was found in their hotel room. The crime was never solved.
Colin Firth, the straight half of the variety partnership, agrees to cooperate, but Kevin Bacon declines because he is writing his own book to be released after their deaths.
Despite Bacon's reluctance - and this is important - Bacon's representatives allow Lohman to read several chapters of Bacon's book to show her that her work would be rubbish by comparison. They do what? What publisher, in the real world, would attempt to dissuade a rival by sharing information?
This is the first of a string of implausible plot developments that gnaw at the viewer's will to suspend disbelief and, in my case, consume it completely.
Other elements - confrontations between Lohman, Bacon and Firth and an all-too-convenient tape recording - fail to ring true. Although the denouement is rather poignant, the drama has long since become preposterous. I was still chortling to myself because of a previous scene in which a character does an unwitting impression of Hannibal Lecter. And what on earth is going on when a children's hospital hosts a production of Alice in Wonderland with a woman singing a trippy version of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit?
The acting isn't bad - indeed Firth and Bacon are rather good - but it fails to make an unlikely script appear anything but contrived and, occasionally, unintentionally funny.
It doesn't help that the film is told in a confusing series of flashbacks, some of which didn't happen at all. Egoyan attempts to overcome the confusion by adding lots of explanatory voice-overs, but this also acts as a reminder that the images do not do the talking.
And what of the supposedly controversial scenes that earned the film such a high rating from the censors? Well, there's graphic violence, drug taking and, without wanting to spoil anything, sex scenes that wouldn't appear in a standard Hollywood film. But, really, so what? The controversy is a red herring. The film doesn't work, and it is Egoyan who is to blame.