Movie Review: 'The Lie' is an Unintentionally Laugh Out Loud Comedy
A risible new drama from Blumhouse, The Lie somehow manages to be worse than many Blumhouse Horror movies.
The Lie is one of the dumber movies I have seen in a long while. This sleezy production from Blumhouse Productions, better known for cheap horror, than anything remotely like The Lie, wants to put you in the awkward position of being the parents of a child who has murdered a friend. The filmmakers want you to ask what you would do in order to protect your child from going to prison for murder. For a good person, this question is very easy. For the low brain-power characters of The Lie it’s a plot contrivance.
The Lie criminally assaults the dignity of two remarkably good actors. Peter Sarsgard and Mirielle Enos star as divorced parents, Jay and Rebecca. Jay is a doofy musician clinging to the last vestiges of youth by sleeping with a younger bandmate. Rebecca is an uptight lawyer who appears incapable of joy, especially when Jay is around. Thankfully, they only see each other when trading off their daughter, Kayla (Joey King), for weekends.
This weekend, Kayla is supposed to be going to a weekend ballet retreat. That plan goes off the rails after Kayla offers a ride to her friend, Brittany (Devery Jacobs), and the two begin to argue. Forcing dad off the road so they can continue their fight somewhere else, Kayla ends up seeming to have pushed Brittany off of a bridge to her death. There were no witnesses and when Jay can't find Brittany's body, he assumes she floated away and could not have survived the fall and the freezing waters of the river she fell into.
From here the story becomes about Jay and Rebecca doing everything they can to keep Kayla from being arrested for murder. First, Jay allows them to leave the scene of the crime assuming they left no evidence behind. Jay tells Rebecca what happened and they begin to conspire over evidence of the crime and it emerges that Brittany and her father, Sam (Cas Anvar), had a contentious relationship. Will they use this information to keep suspicion off of their daughter? Yes, yes they will but will it work?
Who cares is the answer to that last question. Who cares whether this plan works, the movie is already a monstrous failure by the time the question is posed. Positing as victims parents who are protecting their child who admits to cold blooded murder is a mistake that The Lie simply cannot recover from. The movie doesn’t have any other appeal than the sleezy and cheap notion of ‘what would you do if it was your child' and if you can’t answer that moral question with ease, going to the movies should not be a foremost concern for you. Perhaps seek mental healthcare.
Then there is the clumsy presentation of this already awful premise. At one point, Rebecca has a perfect dream recreation of the crime complete with a vision of Brittany's dead body on the side of the river. But, Rebecca wasn't there when the murder happened. She has no idea what the details were and thus could not possibly have this memory or nightmare? Or was it real and the presentation of Rebecca waking up screaming from a nightmare just a case of bad editing. The movie fails simply for forcing the question to be asked: which is more incompetent, the screenwriting or the editing choices?
Oh but if these were the only problem with The Lie, I might not have even bothered writing this review. No, the biggest problem with The Lie is an ending that is one of the most laughable, risible, and utterly moronic twists I have seen in a movie in quite some time. I won’t spoil it for those who love to laugh at bad movies, and especially enjoy laughing at bad twists. But oh boy friends, this one is a humdinger.
And the delivery of the ending, wow. That delivery. The ending of The Lie is so unintentionally hilarious that it defies description. By this point, these incredibly talented actors are giving deeply heartfelt performances, they are reaching deep for the big emotions and it is all in service of something deeply and embarrassingly dumb. I feel terrible laughing at this scene because each of these actors are giving all that they have but it’s effort that is completely wasted amid of the thudding silliness of this awful plot contrivance.
I find a particular poignancy in watching good effort being given to something shoddy. There is a misguided nobility to dedicating good effort to something that is not working and never was going to work. The Lie has that poignant quality. You can sense the genuine effort, you can see the sweat and the tears of these actors and it is wrenching to find yourself unable to stop from laughing when they fall victim to what this truly idiotic twist has in store for them.
The sadness in the eyes of Peter Sarsgard and Mirielle Enos at the end of The Lie may have been intended to communicate the dread of the situation they are in but my head canon is more entertaining. I believe they are sad, in tears, desperately clinging to Joey King, because they know they've been made to look like fools by this dubious plot. I sympathize with them even as I cannot stop from giggling over their tremendous misfortune.
The Lie debuts on Amazon Prime on October 6th.
About the Creator
Sean Patrick
Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.
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