This movie is currently on hulu and apparently it was made by Franco's professor which is why he is in it. I think most of us know that you don't need to go to school to create art but this almost seems like a cautionary tale. Do you really want to be taught by people who given the chance, would make this? Isn't this proof that art can not be taught? I don't know. I just know the writing is laughably bad. There are so many long shots of things that I think are supposed to establish some other things but mostly prove that amateur actors and pretentious, sloppy dialogue do not get better if you linger on them. I think the acting was supposed to be detached but whatever they were aiming for they missed it. Now the cinematography was nice and Franco is actually kind of likable and watchable when the movie is not being unbearable. Partially because he looks good here and the director recognizes that so kudos for that. Somewhere down there, there might have been kind of an interesting story. A very romanticized, cliche and unbelievable one that seems more like a fanfiction based on a movie than a movie. TLDR: it's very pretentious and obsessed with being artsy. I'll give them the guy the benefit of the doubt though, maybe he is trying to imitate the room?

Captivating performances from all 4 main characters. Josh Lucas was sinister and scary without histrionics. Julianne Nicholson, somehow reminding me of Shirley Maclaine, was "beautiful" in her own way, freckled and refreshing. the doomed damsel in distress. Martin Donovan was the only likable character, the muscle with a heart. James Franco played the central character, William/Joseph, literally a lost soul in limbo, with a questionable background, who cheated death narrowly by chance, was living on borrowed time, and left to ponder the "meaning" of his existence/life and why he was spared. My take is he was still marking time until he met and fell for Anne, the sex slave of the sadistic and manipulative crime boss. William never had a chance, yet it seemed like he might have found a shred of reality to hang on. The poignant ending belongs to William, Anne and Victor, who still had their souls. "Boss", on the other hand, became merely a footnote.The sparse dialog and the artsy cinematography were note-worthy. The mood and melancholy strains of the soundtrack was a bit jarring at times, but might be intentional to go together with the microcosm surrounding the unsavory lives of the four main characters.Definitely a film for film-lovers.

This movie is awful! It moves extremely slow and it has random moments of nothing that seem to last forever. Summed up...it will show a photo up close of an insect for 5 minutes while different people are narrating. Then it shows the guy randomly doing things like just sitting there eating staring off blankly or just standing there yet again blankly staring at something and we watch them do this nothingness for a good few minutes. Then it will flash to the leading lady in a different setting doing a random guy for a minute and then flash back to him eating blankly staring and we switch between the two a few times before moving on to another picture of an insect with a different narrator in the background followed by him standing on a train staring into space and then it flashes back and forth between him standing/staring on the train and the lady doing a different random guy. Most of the movie moves extremely slow with little talking and even less interesting things happening...BORING!!! I guess that's what you get when you buy a $1 movie from the dollar tree. All in all I am giving this movie 1 star only because I have to...if it were up to me I wouldn't be that generous. I am at the point where I would almost pay the store to take it back!

Shadows and Lies came completely under the radar for me. I had never heard of it, heard anyone talking about it or been recommended to watch it. This is one of those films, for me, that leaves you with a profound feeling that something special has just happened. this is the kind of film that immediately after watching had me texting my friends, looking for someone to talk to about it.Its a love story but its not the over sentimental type, at times there are scenes that i found to be the most romantic i have ever seen, but it wouldn't make you smile. its a crime story but it doesn't dwell on the details, there's no foul language, and though there is violence, it is utterly believable and not gratuitous. i found this film to be, in my eyes, perfect in every sense, perfectly balanced. with a lean dialogue stripped of any bravado, shadows and lies is extremely naturalistic. it has just enough information on the characters to help you understand them. enough kept back from view that you have room to think about them wonder after them, like or dislike them, or more importantly, like or dislike aspects of each individual's personality.im tempted to liken this film in tone to biutiful, but thats only in the quality of the acting and the subdued palette. this film is original and stands alone. within this film, every character stands alone. the acting is top drawer. i cant even remember of there was a soundtrack. if there was, i missed it completely. if it was there im sure it did its job properly because i was immersed.ill leave the rest to you to find out. but this is a special film and as such this is my very first IMDb review - i was moved to share my love of this film with the world.ps - the cinematography is beautiful.