Lying
Lying
NR | 08 February 2008 (USA)
Lying Trailers

A long weekend brings four women together in the countryside. Virtual strangers, the women are forced to navigate the depths of social interaction. On the surface all seems placid. But the atmosphere of calm is a facade.

Reviews
Coastal Cruiser ([email protected])

OK. I'm watching this film right now and it is nearly over. I couldn't stand it any more and HAD to look and see what others thought of the film, because I just wasn't getting it.But it turns out there is NOTHING to get! I would love to talk to someone who loved this film. What did you love? Specifically, what about this film made you rate it high? My suspicion is that a good percentage of lovers of this film could NOT tell you why. I suspect they liked the film because they were "supposed" to like it. You know?The movie is called Lying. We the audience don't know what the lie is for a long time. I'm still not sure and the film is almost over. One woman is apparently deceiving the other three she's invited to her "country home" for the weekend. Now it's one thing for the audience to be in the position of the three girls; not knowing. But even when the girls figure out the lie it's STILL not clear what it is.And if it's what I think it is.... well, so what?The movie is beautifully shot. The house it takes place in is marvelous. I want to build a house just like it. The acting is good. And, it's got cool, hip and beautiful Chloe Sevign. But don't pretend to like this movie just because you don't get it, but think you should. Let all the bad reviews give you permission to be honest. And honestly, this movie is a waste of time.

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lindsaymariefitzgerald

It was bad, I agree. Some of the scenes could even be called ludicrous, especially the ghostly opera singer scene where the women all run around the house for ten minutes to try to find the singer. One moment they seem afraid and another they are laughing. I actually fast-forwarded that scene. The worst scene in the movie was the Semiphore Flag Signaling scene. Whahuu???? How about Megan saying to her brother "you said, 'I want pizza'" and insisting he'd said it. For what purpose? It made no sense. Maybe the movie should have been called 'Non Sequitur.' But there were some redeeming things: The scene where the neighbor Sarah comes to visit and its so obvious that Megan is trying to get her away from her guests and then Sarah asks Megan about her parents; you suddenly realize the deception. You're wondering why would this girl do this? And yet there are people out there (I've known at least one) who would say anything to get attention. It was good enough to watch all the way through with a little fast forwarding. The actors were very interesting in their performances.Here are two movies that are much worse: Sarah's Child and Isaac Asimov's "Darkness Falls" made into a movie in 1988 or something.... You couldn't give either of those a 1 out of 10.

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MBunge

After just 10 minutes, this film already felt like it was too long. After a half hour, I wanted Jigsaw or those Eastern European guys from Hostel to show up and start torturing people to death. After an hour, I was stupefied by the vacant nothingness pouring out of the screen. And when Lying at long, long, long last came to an end, the only emotion I could feel was aggravation at being 94 minutes closer to death with nothing at all to show for it.This movie was apparently filmed without a script...or at least I certainly hope it was. If there had been a script, it couldn't have been more than 20 pages long because Lying is about 10% dialog, 20% movement and 70% silence. If any of the cast had been able to read a screenplay in advance that told them how much time their characters would be standing mute, they probably would have found something better to do, like scrubbing their toilet bowls or rearranging their sock drawers.The story, if you can call it that, is about 5 women spending a weekend in the country. Four of them are in one big house and the fifth is in another big house across the way. The four lounge around like they've been drugged, play dress up and videotape the world's worst anti-hunger public service announcement. The fifth stands out in the yard waving semaphore flags around. One of the four tells some innocuous lies and when the other three find out, they drive back to the city. The end. Yeah. That's it. The end. I'm not being sarcastic. That really is it. Seriously. The end.For quite a while, I kept thinking there had to be some point to Lying. Surely, I thought, nothing could be this vacuous without a purpose. At first, I expected it to turn into a horror movie where the lying woman kills the other three. Then I hoped that maybe they'd all get naked or something. Finally, I was reduced to waiting for the camera to pull back and reveal the whole thing took place inside the snow globe of an autistic child. No such luck.Lying feels like it's made up of nothing but deleted scenes. If it were a 15 minute long film festival entry, it would be boring. At an hour and a half, it's practically anesthetizing. If you showed this movie to a small dog, it might go to sleep and never wake up. There's simply nothing going on here.I suppose the actresses here do fine enough work, though they might as well be portraying cigar store Indians for all there is to their characters. Non-writer/director M. Blash's use of a hand held camera also demonstrates that he's seen the jillion other movies shot with hand held cameras since the late 90s, though that appears to be the extent of his experience as a filmmaker. The movie is well lit, though this is the first time a film has ever been so lacking in any redeeming features that I've been reduced to praising the lighting.There's a lot of prejudice out there against so-called "art house" cinema. Nonsense like Lying is one of the main reasons it exists and is so prevalent. If you told someone this was good, not only would watching it probably sour them on "art house" films for the rest of their lives, that person likely wouldn't speak to you ever again. This thing fits the old joke that the only people who should ever see it are convicts on their way to the electric chair, because it will make their last moments seem like an eternity.In case I've been too cryptic, this movie is terrible. Don't ever look at it, even it someone else is paying.

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Duccio

Even though the movie has an intriguing start it ends nowhere. Megan is setting up for the arrival of her friends, moving the furniture, hiding things, putting things away, etc. She brings boxes filled with dolls and the movie spends a ridiculous amount of time placing the dolls all over the front yard. Many small details are scattered around during this first part. The point is that when the girls come, all of this material just got wasted. The dialog is nonsensical, so are the actions and the plot. The only thing that made me watch me till the end is to see wheather or not the movie was going to bring the clues together. It did not. At the end, when the lights came on the whole audience in the room sighed in with relief and was happy to leave. My suggestion is: spare yourself 90 mins of your life, I almost see every movie that comes out and am able to pick the good points no matter how small they are out of every movie. In this one there's none.

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