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Where The Truth Lies

2005, Movie, NR, 107 mins

Where The Truth Lies: Review

WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
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Based on Broadway and pop-music composer Rupert Holmes' breezy novel about a Martin and Lewis-like comedy duo haunted by the unsolved murder of a young woman, Canadian director Atom Egoyan's showbiz mystery should be a glitzy, sexy romp. But in attempting to turn it into a tricky, neo-noir fable about corruption in the dazzling glare of the spotlight, Egoyan drains the life right out of the material, and the result is a chilly, complicated thriller that's neither thrilling nor a Through the Looking Glass head spinner. Back in 1957, comedy team Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth) were at the peak of their careers, commanding top dollar for live shows and basking in the do-gooder glory of their telethons in support of polio research. Then a young chambermaid named Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard) was found naked and dead in the suite they shared while headlining at a mobbed-up New Jersey hotel. Neither Lanny nor Vince was charged — they had alibis, drugs were implicated and the body was quickly cremated — but the girl's death cast a shadow over their reputations and broke up the act. Fifteen years later, Vince is a wealthy recluse, but Lanny is still in the game, dressing his old shtick in silk cravats and double-knit pantsuits. Sexy, ambitious journalist Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman), who idolized them as a girl, has landed a fat contract to cowrite a tell-all book with Vince. But it comes with a proviso: She has to get Vince to reveal the truth about O'Flaherty's death. Vince stonewalls and when Lanny gets wind of the project, he tries to discourage Karen by letting her read the pertinent chapter from his own forthcoming memoir. She persists, and unsavory details about the comics' pill-popping, hard-drinking, womanizing, high-living antics tumble out of the closet while the truth about O'Flaherty's death eludes her. The tale ties itself into coincidence-heavy knots getting to the final, not-particularly-convincing revelation, which would be fine if the time-tripping twists and turns weren't so oddly unengaging. It doesn't help that Lohman turns in an uncharacteristically dreadful performance (though she looks fabulous in disco-decadent '70s fashions), but Egoyan has to take the bulk of the blame. For all the brazen frontal nudity, lesbian dalliance and controversial ménage à trois, he has no feel for pulpy potboilers or sleazy kicks, and the cold, cold void at the film's center overwhelms the lurid surface gloss without offering anything in its place. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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