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Where the Truth Lies (2005) More at IMDbPro »

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116 comments in total

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91 out of 120 people found the following comment useful :-
A Wonderful Mess, 14 March 2006

Author: marcosaguado from Los Angeles, USA

Atom Egoyan is one of my most trusted directors. He never disappoints me even when I'm not totally taken by the film. This is a perfect example of that. I loved it and hated it, all at the same time. Everything works and nothing works. Bacon and Firth couldn't be better as the Martin and Lewis, boy and girl act and yet...I didn't quite believe it. Good as they are they're not heavyweights and in my modest opinion the parts required heavyweights. I was sucked in though and enthralled by some extraordinary Egoyanesque moments with David Lynchish touches here and there. I believe the film was a flop at the box office, naturally. Too much of an adult story that demands not only full attention but participation from its audience. I will certainly see it again.

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91 out of 139 people found the following comment useful :-
A Question Of Casting, 20 March 2006

Author: Donald Agustamarian from London, England

I was engrossed by the premise. Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and a dead girl in a bathtub. To see Firth and Bacon go through the steps of a sort of Jerry Lewis Dean Martin routine was, in itself, reason enough to see the movie. On top of that, a director like Egoyan. I was hooked but immediately, regrettably unhooked every time Alison Lohman opened her mouth. Who could possibly believe it? That character should exude intelligence other than sensual vibes. Miss Lohman doesn't exude either and makes the whole premise collapse. Imagine a young Jodie Foster or now Natalie Portman or even Rachel McAdams in those shoes. That was a pivotal part The whole believability of the premise depended on her. Because of her performance I saw the cracks in everyone else's performance. So the experience, for me, was a series of exhilarating rushes and disappointing stops. Who said that casting was 90% responsible for the success of a film?. Whoever said it was right. Here the truth lies at the feet of a casting director and of a director for casting.

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152 out of 265 people found the following comment useful :-
Hey Yo Pass the Riuniti on Diamonds, 22 June 2005

Author: Jonathan Peter Jackson from United States

I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on the first public screening of Atom Egoyan's "Where The Truth Lies" in Switzerland. I have never been moved to write a preview-review, but in this case it becomes necessary. To say that the movie is impressive would be an unfortunate meiosis. Everything we have come to expect from Egoyan in the past two decades is present in fine form: impeccable mise-en-scene, exquisitely precise camera movement, and a score that not only adds texture but is an artistic accomplishment in and of itself.

But wait, there's more. It turns out that Egoyan's first foray into a larger, more "industry" piece brings out the best in his sensibilities, and shows that he is a genuine and lasting artist, that is, capable of evolving while remaining true to the vision that made him an international phenomenon (for the acclaimed Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter).

Simply put, the cast is outstanding. The performances Egoyan brings forth are nuanced...one of a kind. In particular, Alison Lohman as Karen O'Conner nails the difficulties of multi-valence like a seasoned vet. She is at once timid, cunning, she surrenders as well as she controls, both Alice and Svengali. I get a very strong Jennifer Jason Leigh 2.0 vibe from her. Jane Greer all the way. She has mad potential, and it is exciting to see early on.

Kevin Bacon's extraordinary gifts of performance reach their zenith in the impossibly charismatic Lanny Morris. His is a tour-de-force performance that rivals Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, Mitchum in Out of The Past, and Brando in Last Tango. That's my word! He will certainly be nominated for an Academy Award, and unless another actor comes forward with a role of a lifetime, it would be no surprise if he cops the statue, especially considering his recent work in Mystic River, for which he was overlooked.

Colin Firth is a star in his own right, shining brilliantly as Lanny's road dog Vince Collins, perhaps the film's most intriguing, complex character study. Firth gives all of himself and more, and is as courageous as it comes. David Hayman also is creepily adept inna Erich von Stroheim style.

Los Angeles is captured magnificently, as is the world of old school song and dance star power. Think Martin and Lewis even more buck wild than they really were and you'll get a sense of the flavor.

Structurally the narrative is Trump Tight, revealing yet never telling, fulfilling its film noir genre and then making a logical progression upon it. Yes people, it's all here...Lies, Laughs, Loves, Songs, Tears, Selfishness, Generosity, Deceit, Reconciliation, and HOT HOT SEX. Check it! Depending of course upon how it is promoted, this film has the opportunity to do great things for North American Cinema. It can bridge the gap between big box office productions and so-called art house films, entertaining while simultaneously exploring more profound issues. Popular audiences are not stupid, they just need to learn how to see and think and feel again. This is the ambassadorial movie we have been waiting for. I believe that Where The Truth Lies can produce a kind of leap of faith in moviegoers and producers alike, so that there can perhaps be another Golden Era of Hollywood while the millennium is still young.

Where The Truth Lies get 5 Mics from The Source and a Robert Townsend soul clap! Congrats, Maestro Egoyan. I'll have the lobster.

Jonathan Peter Jackson Budapest, Hungary June 2öö5

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68 out of 107 people found the following comment useful :-
Sex, Drugs, (not so much Rock & Roll) and a Mystery...., 13 September 2005

Author: galasius from Mississauga, Ontario

Another great work by Atom Egoyan, based on the novel by Rupert Holmes.

Knowing a little about the plot before seeing the film my big question/concern was "Kevin Bacon"? Going in I just didn't see Bacon in such a roll. But it didn't take long before Egoyan's primary cast selection (including Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Alison Lohman) was clearly calculated and well thought.

Some might call this Egoyan's 'most mainstream' work to date, but it retains many of the qualities we've come to expect from him. The screenplay was precisely developed to provide a great pace to the story, and to provide little 'bits and pieces' of key information just when you need them. It doesn't give the truth away too early, yet when the secret is finally revealed it's accompanied by a sense of "I should have seen that coming".

This film does deal with some 'touchy' cinematic subjects including sex and drug use. What should be truly disturbing is the murder in question, but 'simple' murder is accepted in film without a second thought.

The screening I saw was the 'uncut' version of the film. There has apparently been some controversy surrounding some of the films content, so I don't know whether this is the version the movie-going public will eventually see in mass-market theatres. It contained some pretty graphic sex, but it wasn't gratuitous - it served a purpose in the development of the characters and story. These scenes, while clearly not suitable for a younger audience, belong in this film.

An excellent film, as most have come to expect from Egoyan.

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64 out of 104 people found the following comment useful :-
Disappointing effort from Egoyan, 12 March 2006

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

Egoyan's weakest film, at least since he came to prominence with Exotica. It's actually a somewhat interesting mystery, but it has a lot of flaws. There is a death, possibly a murder, in the hotel suite of two famous comedians (played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon), based on Martin and Lewis. That's the film's biggest flaw, that this completely fictional mystery uses Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as a model. It's very distracting. The bulk of the story has a young journalist (Alison Lohman) writing the story of the two comedians, trying to solve the mystery. The film-making is pretty good, but Egoyan, except for The Sweet Hereafter, has always been a weak director when it comes to actors. Lohman, who was great in Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men, is awful here (she does get naked and have sex with a woman, though, which makes the film almost worth seeing). Kevin Bacon, who gave his best performance ever last year in the still underseen The Woodsman, isn't especially good, either. Only Firth does a good job. The film is also overscored with some very cliché mystery music. Mychael Danna's scores for Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter were brilliant; this one's a flop.

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62 out of 101 people found the following comment useful :-
Hugely entertaining film + Bad critics + Tasteful love scenes., 17 October 2005
Author: frunklins from United States

Hugely entertaining film + Bad critics + Tasteful love scenes.

I was very entertained. There wasn't a single boring minute in "Where the Truth Lies". I almost believed some newspaper critics' reviews and was prepared to be at least a little bit disappointed either with the actors (critics said were miscast), the sex scenes (critics said were explicit) or the ending. I was sitting there and waiting for a disappointment but it never came. It is a superb murder mystery with at least 3 top notch twists and in the end I was completely satisfied.

In my opinion, (and I know a thing or two about this) the love scene between "Alice" and Alison is one of the most beautiful ones ever performed (on the screen). I mean the (tastefully made) oral sex scene. ("Alice" stops for a moment, looks up at Alison with a trace of a smile ... the moonlight illuminates Alice's slightly wet mouth and chin... she looks down and continues. I haven't seen in any other film a more gorgeous pose than that of Alison during this exercise. Americans can make love as beautifully as Europeans and this film is the only proof so far. It even surpasses the straight love scene with Luisa Ranieri in Antonioni's "Eros"). The film is not about sex, though it is wonderfully choreographed. The most impressive thing here is certainly the story.

(P.S. Critics really did a disservice to us. Some of these same guys, I remember, used unbelievable superlatives while reviewing poor horror movies. One begins to question their motives).

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51 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
Interesting- Should never have been given more then R rating, 13 October 2005

Author: bheidere from United States

I saw this at a screening last week and just have to set the record straight. This is not a sex flick. It is a story set in the 1950's and 1970's and the relationships involve some adult behavior. (Remember the 70's when there were a lot of drugs and a lot of sex? Sure not everyone lived the party life but some did and that is all Where the Truth Lies shows). Intimacy is part of the story, character development and not put in just to show some skin. Plus Atom directed the film so well that you are never drawn to the nudity, you are drawn to the characters. Bravo to Firth and Bacon for genuine performances, and not shying away from a good story. Lesser actors could not have pulled it off. It is an honest, beautifully shot film. Sometimes it felt long but maybe I was just tired. Nothing in this film is offensive unless you are a very immature adult. Worth the $ to see this movie.

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88 out of 157 people found the following comment useful :-
My faith in film has been restored, 1 July 2005

Author: ken-579 from United States

I have recently seen a screening of this movie. I found it to be engrossing and labyrinthine as any Egoyan film. Yet he has taken a big budget form and made it his own. The story uses big star actors to give the feel of Hollywood. Egoyan doesn't use the time periods (50's & 70's) of the film as camp. Which most film makers do. He never takes the easy, read that as lazy, path. This film demands that Egoyan stand up to the style and quality found in Hollywood film and yet he continues to make the his. He gets amazing complex performances of everyone. People will be talking about Kevin Bacon role as Lanny Morris for months. If he doesn't get an Academy Award nomination than I will be shocked. This is the role Alison Lohman has been waiting for. Finally she gets to play an adult. He character is is naive and jaded, moored in reality and adrift in an world she can't control. Colin Firth plays Vince Collins with vulnerability and sense of control that only makes feel deeply for Vince. I have to admit this film makes me wonder why I bother to go to most films these days.

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50 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
This film wants to be too much at the same time, 23 January 2006

Author: Ruben Mooijman from Ghent, Belgium

In enjoyed most of Egoyan's movies very much, but I was disappointed by Where The Truth Lies. I got the impression the film wants to be too much at the same time. There is no real focus while the story swerves from the fifties to the seventies, and from Los Angeles to New York to Miami. It's a historical portrait about Hollywood in the fifties, but also a psychological drama and a whodunit at the same time. This movie could have been great if it restricted itself to one of those genres. I kept wondering what Egoyan wanted to tell us - except who killed Maureen O'Flaherty. Maybe he wanted to tell us only that, but in that case the movie could have been a lot less complex. What annoyed me most was the completely improbable plot. A corpse in a lobster crate, mixed-up identities, secret letters from unknown senders, blackmail threats - that's so Agatha Christie! And I wonder if anyone felt not disappointed after the ridiculous ending.

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40 out of 70 people found the following comment useful :-
Want to know where the truth lies ?, 8 January 2006

Author: gromeks-1 from Angola

The two praising reviews I read about this movie forced me to react. I could not agree less with what was written. In my views, this movie could not have been any worse since, at the end of the day, it leaves the viewers with the impression, not only of having wasted both their time and money, but also of having been crooked.

The truth actually lies beneath: Some might interpret this as lack of subtlety or nuance, but, after having thought of this for a couple of hours, I could only come up with the conclusion that this movie is extremely poor in nearly every single way: the script is rather poor, the editing is artificial, misleading and annoying, the acting is extremely poor (at least as far as Alison Lohman is concerned), the music is banal, the costumes and the make up are off.

Indeed, the script is in fact frustratingly simple and should have been the object of a short: a young journalist investigates a crime and unveils the criminal after a couple of interviews. Furthermore, the ending, which reveals why the crime took place, leads to only one conclusion: much ado about nothing.

Secondly, Egoyan has obviously tried to hide the shallowness of the script by over-editing. Indeed, there are numerous flashbacks that obviously aim at making the plot more dense than it really is. In fact, they only make the story more difficult to understand, without making it more appealing.

The truth is that the ending does not surprise anyone, not only because it is not original, but above all because most viewers have lost interest after 40 minutes.

Indeed, they are introduced to a young journalist, Alison Lohman, who is, they are told, a young and unexperienced journalist who is given the task of drafting a one million dollars biography of a TV star. Besides the incongruity of such a situation (why an unexperienced journalist? why so much money for a TV star ? etc.), the extremely poor acting of Alison Lohman makes it difficult for the audience to feel any sympathy: when surprised, she frowns; when upset, she frowns; when aroused, disappointed, sympathizing, sad or happy, she frowns again - and again. Her obvious lack of talent is also exemplified by her off voice that is used all along the movie to explain to the lost audience what Egoyan is aiming at. She tries so hard to sound mysterious that it becomes laughable, especially since the suspense never catches the audience.

She also looks very sexy during the entire movie, for an unexplainable reason: whether at night or noon, whether in the presence of a man or a woman, she is constantly wearing low-cleavage dresses or robes, that are absolutely inappropriate with the situation and which make it even harder to believe. She also insists in typing her article with two inches-long nails which are, as everybody knows, the distinctive sign of a journalist.

Furthermore, during the entire movie, a very loud music, apparently composed exclusively for violins, attempts to increase the non-existing suspense. In fact, it is just plainly annoying.

Overall, the entire movie is extremely tacky, and the only reason for watching it would be the anatomy of Alison Lohman. But that is hardly enough to make a suitable non-pornographic movie.

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