The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 11, Ed. 1 Friday, November 4, 2005 Page: 9 of 16
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THE RICE THRESHER ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4,
,2005
COURTESY THINK FILM
Alison Lohman stars as a reporter investigating the life of a celebrity played by Kevin Bacon in Where the Truth Lies.
Convoluted mystery focuses on sleazy 'Lies'
Jonathan Schumann
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAEE
Canadian director Atom Egoyan
(The Sweet Hereafter) examines
celebrity culture and the slinky,
glamorous veneer of show business
in Where the Truth Lies, a laughably
bad attempt at mind-bending psy-
chodrama.
'where the
truth lies'
in theaters
Rating: ★ 1/2
(out of five)
Kevin Bacon (Mystic River) and
Colin Firth (Bridget Jones's Diary)
star as Lanny Morris and Vince
Collins, a Jerry Lewis-Dean Martin-
esque musical comedy duo who play
nightclubs and make films in the
1950s. At the peak of their fame, the
duo inexplicably splits up, sparking
rumors and speculation that gradu-
ally become Hollywood lore.
The film flashes between the mo-
ments leading up to this split and an
ambitious young reporter's attempt
to uncover the truth in the 1970s.
Alison Lohman, whose pale, angelic-
appearance made her the perfect
choice to play a young Jessica Lange
in Tim Burton's whimsical Big Fish,
plays Karen O'Connor, a reporter for
whom journalistic ethics are a mere
afterthought. She is working on a
tell-all book about Morrisand Collins
— the type of seedy, tabloid tale that
if published today would be perfect
fodder for ReaganBooks, the same
publisher that put out porn queen
Jenna Jameson's autobiography.
Their story is all the more in-
triguing because underneath their
clean-cut image, Morris and Collins
are pill-popping, sex-addicted party
boys who treat girls poorly and then
use their fame to cover up the mess.
While performing in Florida, the
couple seduces a young hotel worker
{Road. Trip's Rachel Blanchard), who
dies mysteriously in their presence.
Her fate, and Lanny and Vince's re-
luctance to speak about it, becomes
central to Karen's investigation.
The plot, and Egoyan's approach,
draws a striking parallel to David
Lynch's Mulholland Drive, a vasdy
superior film that also chronicles
the search for answers in a laby-
rinthine show-business world. But
Egoyan shows none of Lynch's skill
for economy and visual storytelling.
Even when Drive enters the realm
of the absurd, the audience knows
Lynch maintains ultimate control.
Egoyan, though, seems as lost in
the mystery as are his characters.
The film's scenes are sloppily pasted
together with the worst form of voice-
over narration—it adds no depth and
only restates the obvious.
The film's performances are as
forced and contrived as the story-
telling. Bacon simply cannot cred-
ibly achieve his character's goofy
stage persona. Offstage, he relies on
the same haughtiness he brought
to his scientist-with-a-God-complex
in Hollow Man. Firth does what he
can with a less-developed, poorly
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written role. Surprisingly, the real
problem is Lohman, who — no mat-
ter how well she slides into Beth
Pasternak's chic period costumes
— is too young and naive to play the
very adult, manipulative Karen. In
White Oleander, Lohman played the
conflicted foster child with maturity
and poise that demonstrated talent
far beyond her years. She did simi-
larly commendable work as a con
artist-in-training in Ridley Scott's
Matchstick Men. Here, though,
Egoyan does not know what to
do with Lohman's inherent mix of
strength and vulnerability.
Egoyan does deserve credit for
assembling a technical team that
re-created the vintage worlds of the
1950s and 1970s with precise, crisp vi-
sion. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy,
who also framed Egoyan's The Sweet
Hereafter and Felicia's Journey, cre-
ates a light, glossy look that achieves
a level of seduction not found in the
film's other elements. Philip Baker's
production design captures the night-
clubs and sound stages of showbiz's
past with stunning accuracy.
Ultimately, Where the Truth Lies
plays like Egoyan's poison-penned
letter to Hollywood and the me-
dia. Not only does he demonize
1-anny and Vince, two men who
have gained seemingly untouch-
able status, but he also narrowly
portrays journalists as selfish, con-
niving vixens. Egoyan seems to be
cursing the symbiotic relationship
between the two. Funny how, in his
worldview, pretentious filmmakers
emeiije unscathed.
CAPOTE
From page 8
screen chemistry between Collins
and Hoffman that makes the film
such a pleasure to watch.
The movie illustrates how the
story of the Kansas family and
its killers, which Capote wrote to
change the way society viewed the
novel and writing in general, slowly
transformed Capote himself.
Despite the intriguing and mul-
tilayered plot, the film would be
meaningless if not for Hoffman's
convincing and seemingly effortless
performance. From his voice, remi-
niscent of a washed-out Southern
belle, to his playful boasting and
showoff displays to his flippant hand
gestures, Hoffman captures Capote's
essence — a mix of clever humor,
urbane social grace and celebrated
genius. He is adept at playing a man
whose sensitivity and ability to read
SQUID
From page 8
such great, folksy artists as Louden
Wainwright III and Lou Reed, and
intersperses it with a surprisingly
large amount of original music
from Bert Jansch, Britta Phillips
and Dean Wareham.
This musical match fits best in
Frank's scenes, where the film's
focus on individual character de-
velopment also flourishes. P rank's
story is the most disturbing and
fixating of the film's characters,
and Baumbach and Kline force ner-
vous, uncomfortable laughter from
the viewer at the least appropriate
times. For example, Frank gets up
from a study hall table and steps
into the back stacks of his middle
school's library. Once he is hidden
from other students' sight, he un-
clenches a torn-out piece of paper
featuring a pinup model. He begins
masturbating to the picture almost
perfunctorily and wipes semen on a
row of library books before heading
back to study hall. Psychologically,
this scene has little to no humor, but
the juxtaposition of two moderately
taboo topics — masturbation and
sexual expression in minors — dis-
orients viewers enough to extract
inescapable, defensive laughter.
Meanwhile, the relationship be-
tween Bernard and Walt is a superior
display of inter-character tension,
more through Baumbach's dialogues
than character chemistry — though
casting did well to find two actors
who bear such a striking physical
resemblance. The father and son
are in alliance until one of Bernard's
students, Lili (The25th Hour's Anna
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other people shields his own pain
and insecurities.
Hoffman captures
Capote's essence
— a mix of clever
humor, URBANE
social grace and
celebrated genius.
Yet the complexity of such a
brilliant man and the mystery
under which the book was written
do more than explain why In Cold
Blood garnered high acclaim. Capote
illuminates the torment one project
can have and shows why it was the
author's last book.
Paquin) moves into Bernard's new
home and both Walt and Bernard
fall for her. Walt struggles to come
to terms with Lili and Bernard after
finding the two in a compromising
position, which results in one of
the more empathetic moments of
the film.
While The Squid and the Whale
has its high points, the best mo-
ments of character chemistry
were the few that lacked technical
finesse. It would be hard to cast
any individual characters differ-
ently and unthinkable to exchange
any major crew members, but the
ensemble lacked the unity that
made Baumbach's last project,
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,
so great.
treebeards.com
MM
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Obermeyer, Amber. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 11, Ed. 1 Friday, November 4, 2005, newspaper, November 4, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443204/m1/9/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.