Kayla (Joey King) is a spoiled fifteen year old girl. She has asthma, dances ballet and gets away with murder thanks to her father (who attempts to be the favorite parent through a divorce). When Kayla and her dad, Jay (Peter Sarsgaard), are driving to a dance retreat one afternoon, they see Kayla’s friend Britney (Devery Jacobs) standing on the side of the road and offer assistance. The twisted tale that is about to ensue, however, is nothing like they could have ever expected. The haunting events that befall the father and daughter will test their mental limits and their relationship more than ever, and The Lie that follows them around as a result of certain events proves to be crippling, saturating their world in immense struggle and pain.
The Lie opens with a montage of Kayla through the years. Many of the clips include Sarsgaard and Kayla’s mother, Rebecca (Mireille Enos). It’s easy to get footage of adults through the years as a little makeup and a wig can do the trick, but with children, the process of deaging can be quite challenging. Director Veena Sud and director of cinematography Peter Wunsdorf elected to use actual home videos from King’s childhood to supplement the new footage of Sarsgaard and Enos. Film editor Philip Fowler does an incredible job of splicing together this combination of footage quite seamlessly. This introduction works in a number of ways. The first way is that it expresses to viewers the relationship between Kayla and both her mother and father. Secondly, it allows viewers to create some sort of expectation for what is to come. The opening montage lets the audience know that, simply enough, there are a group of talented individuals working on this project and that anything short of perfection should be considered less-than-adequate by both their standards and the viewer’s.
Now the nagging question will poke its head out repeatedly throughout The Lie, begging viewers to ask themselves if the standards that the cast and crew set for themselves early on are met. In short, yes. It feels like every moment of the film is bursting with emotion and that viewers are compelled to feel anxious, uncomfortable and on edge throughout the course of the story. The Lie provides insight into how far the action of lying can take a person, how far one might go for someone they care about, and the difficulties that accompany any form of dishonesty. These are all things that audience members have experienced at one point or another in their journeys through life, connecting them to the drama strewn throughout the film. There are so many moving parts moving The Lie forward, leaving the potential for continuity errors to cause issues throughout. However, like expressed in the opening montage, this crew made sure to omit any errors of this nature, keeping everything feeling fluid and honest. The precision of the filming and editing department is only outshined by the genius of Enos and Sarsgaard’s performances.
There is a particular scene, toward the end of The Lie that perfectly captures the abilities of both Sarsgaard and Enos. As deafening silence ensues for what feels like minutes, the slow, persistent change on the faces of Rebecca and Jay, expressing how nearly everyone in the audience is feeling at this moment, resonates with those watching and astutely wraps up what had been building for some time. The scene falls flat if the two fail to deliver, and ultimately the film feels a little worse for wear if the two are unable to pull off this one scene. As the culmination of everything that has taken place rises to the surface, the leads ensure that viewers share the stress that they are feeling, allowing those viewers to better understand the severity of what has occurred.
The film ends so abruptly and it forces viewers to want to see how the current situation plays out but ultimately leaves them hanging. While this choice is a bit frustrating, it’s ability to continue to string viewers along after everything has ended is inspiring and well executed. The Lie strings viewers along for nearly two hours, pleading with them to feel what the characters are feeling, and, even when we can’t be sure of how everything concludes, we feel something poking us, prodding us, forcing us to understand everything in the film. The pressure that goes into delivering a far-fetched and unfamiliar scenario is immense, but Sud and the talented actors bring this story to life. Viewers feel like they have been immersed in this twisted story and find themselves trying to make everything better. As viewers feel like part of the story, it becomes more clear than ever that The Lie lives up to its own hype.
Directed by Veena Sud. Written by Veena Sud, Marcus Seibert & Sebastian Ko. Starring Peter Sarsgaard, Mireille Enos, Joey King, Cas Anver, Patti Kim, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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