Where the Truth Lies
Encyclopedia
Where the Truth Lies is a 2005 Canadian/British drama film
, written and directed by Atom Egoyan
. It stars Kevin Bacon
, Colin Firth
, and Alison Lohman
, and is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Rupert Holmes
.
team Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon
) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth
) are at the height of their success, and 1972, when journalist
Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman
) is determined to unravel the mystery of a young woman found dead in their hotel suite 15 years before.
In 1957, immediately after hosting a 39-hour-long polio
telethon in a Miami television studio, Morris and Collins fly north to open the new showroom of a New Jersey
hotel run by mobster Sally San Marco (Maury Chaykin
), who has intimidated them into appearing, in order to improve his own image. In their New Jersey
hotel suite, shortly after their arrival, the nude body of Miami college
student Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard
) is found in a bathtub. Maureen, an aspiring journalist
working for the summer as a server at the comedy team's Miami hotel (which is also owned by San Marco), had been researching an article for her school newspaper on the comedy team, and had interviewed them in Miami just before she disappeared. Police investigation in no way connects either Morris or Collins to Maureen's death, which is officially attributed to a drug overdose. But almost immediately after her body is discovered, the two men's comedy partnership is dissolved, despite their enormous success and the closeness of their dependence on one another.
Meanwhile, many unanswered questions remain for any investigators of Maureen's death; the most confusing aspect is how Maureen's body made it from Miami to New Jersey at the same time the comedians were traveling.
Fifteen years later, in 1972, Karen, who as a young polio survivor first met the duo at the same telethon portrayed in the movie's opening sequence, accepts a job to ghostwrite
Vince Collins' autobiography
— a deal from which Collins will earn $1 million, which he badly needs. The project is complicated by the fact that she keeps receiving anonymously-sent chapters from a book about the one-time duo that Lanny Morris himself has written; Karen had some prior knowledge of Morris' book project. Karen, who has idolized the comedians ever since first meeting them, encounters Morris, accompanied by his faithful valet
Reuben (David Hayman
), by chance in the first-class section of a flight, where she has to share a dinner table with them. Wishing to keep her identity secret, during the meal she introduces herself as "Bonnie Trout", the name of the best friend with whom she has traded apartments. Morris and Karen hit it off and have sex in his hotel. He disappears the next morning, apparently without leaving her a note.
Under her own name, Karen begins to work on the Collins autobiography. Complications arise when Collins invites her to an all-day working session at his Los Angeles home and she learns that Morris will be joining them as well. Near-panic ensues; she abruptly invents an excuse to leave, but meets Lanny in the driveway, and her masquerade is revealed — Lanny discovers she has lied to him about who she is, and Collins discovers that the woman he thought was helping him write his memoirs is having or has had an affair with his ex-partner. He agrees to continue with the book, but creates a situation in which he hopes to be able to blackmail
Karen into staying away from the story of Maureen O'Flaherty, which is Karen's consuming interest. Thus, after plying Karen with wine and drugs, Collins manipulates her into having sex with a young aspiring singer named Alice. He photographs the two women in compromising positions and tells Karen that unless she tells the publisher that there is nothing odd or improper surrounding Maureen's death, he will make the pictures public.
Karen discovers that Maureen had secretly recorded her interactions with Morris and Collins. Gradually, it becomes clear what really happened that night 15 years before: the three had engaged in a menage a trois
, fueled by drugs and booze, and at some point Collins tried to have sex with Morris, who resisted violently. When Collins retreated to his room, Maureen tried to blackmail
Morris to keep this information secret: in 1957, it would have finished Collins professionally and personally if it had come out that he was bisexual. Collins passed out in his room, Morris in his, and Maureen fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, she was dead.
Fifteen years later, Collins indeed faces the destruction of his life when Karen begins to uncover the story; Morris is horrified by the effects of what Karen is doing, and Karen discovers more about Morris' "fix-it man", Reuben. While both Morris and Collins were convinced the other murdered Maureen, they smuggled her body in a crate full of lobsters (a gift from San Marco
) with Reuben's assistance, and the crate was shipped ahead of them to the New Jersey hotel. The tape recorder was on during the entire night, but the tape was missing all these years. Reuben confessed to Karen that he murdered Maureen to protect his employers' reputations, and produces the tape to confirm his guilt. At the end of the film, Karen commits to Maureen's mother that she will publish the truth after she dies, so as to spare her the pain of learning about her daughter's indiscretions.
and Jerry Lewis
, although the plot was pure fiction. Holmes called it a study of "the trust that must exist between any show business team who puts their lives in each other's hands" and "what happens when they no longer trust each other." Shortly after the novel was published, Holmes was asked who he envisioned playing the lead roles in a film adaptation. He suggested Ben Affleck
, Matt Damon
, and Kate Hudson
, or Tom Cruise
, Ben Stiller
"and any actress in America who's shorter than they are." Tongue-in-cheek, he continued, "Or what about Kukla, Fran and Ollie
? This is probably why I'm not a studio head."
Scenes in Vince's home were filmed at the Stahl House
in Los Angeles, while the Brantford Airport
stood in for Newark International Airport. Other exteriors were filmed in Toronto
, with interiors shot at Shepperton Studios
in Surrey
, England.
The film's soundtrack
includes "Josephine, Please No Lean on the Bell" performed by Louis Prima
, "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears
, "Oye Como Va" by Santana
, and "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic
. "White Rabbit"
, written by Grace Slick
and originally recorded by Jefferson Airplane
, is featured prominently in one scene, while "You Know, You Know" and "Sanctuary", performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra, appear in the film's most erotic sequence.
The film received an NC-17 rating in the United States due to scenes depicting a threesome
and graphic lesbian sex. Egoyan condemned the MPAA
decision as "a violent act of censorship
", while Bacon stated, "I don't get it, when I see films (that) are extremely violent, extremely objectable sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more clothes on." Both suggested that homophobia
may have played a role in the decision, as the film deals in part with repressed homosexuality
. THINKFilm
executives opted to release the film unrated in the United States. The rating was later a minor subject of analysis in the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated
.
and was shown at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival
, the Woodstock Film Festival
, and Festival do Rio in Brazil, before going into theatrical release in Canada on October 7, 2005 and the United States the following week. It grossed $872,142 in North America and $2,605,536 in other markets, for a total worldwide box office of $3,477,678. The unrated designation hurt the film's financial return, since many theatres would not show it.
al approach to narrative. Here, he seems to want to deconstruct celebrity through the familiar mechanics of a murder mystery. Yet because he also doesn't want to be imprisoned by genre, he tries to shake loose its rules, much as Robert Altman
did in 1973 with his laid-back take on Raymond Chandler
's Long Goodbye
. It almost works, at least in part . . . In the end, it is Mr. Egoyan's fealty to the novel, its feints and dodges, that proves the film's undoing." She called Kevin Bacon "excellent" but questioned "the calamitous miscasting" of Alison Lohman, "whose ingénue looks and uncontrolled voice are wildly out of sync with the film's other performances and self-consciously lurid atmosphere . . . [S]he has neither the chops nor the core mystery that might have made Mr. Egoyan's pseudo-David Lynch
ambitions for his film fly."
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
called it "film noir
right down to the plot we can barely track; we're reminded of William Faulkner
asking Raymond Chandler who did it in The Big Sleep
and Chandler saying he wasn't sure . . . Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of Sunset Boulevard
. . . I have seen Where the Truth Lies twice and enjoyed it more when I understood its secrets."
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone
rated the film one star, calling it a "monumental misfire" and adding, "This movie isn't over-the-top - it doesn't know where the top is. Trash addicts will eat up every graphic minute, even if they prefer to wait for the DVD
."
Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle
called the film "compulsively watchable even as laughably over-the-top moments start piling up. To be truthful, most of it is high-gloss trash. I'm prepared to recommend Truth despite this - or maybe because of it . . . Bacon has the showier role, and he wrings everything he can out of it. But Firth is equally impressive . . . Truths descent into camp
happens mostly during the scenes set in the '70s. Lohman is a big part of the problem . . . she's so shrill and annoying as Karen that you end up wishing she were the one floating in that tub."
Todd McCarthy of Variety
called the film "unconvincing" and "jumbled" and added, "Fractured narrative devices are further encumbered by multiple narration sources, incidental characters who function as mere devices, and uncertain time frames. More bothersome still is the stiff, on-topic nature of most of the film; with Karen in full interrogation mode nearly all the time, scenes and characters are rarely allowed to breathe and develop of their own accord . . . a problem unrelieved by Lohman's performance, which reveals nothing beneath the surface or between the lines. Bacon and Firth both prove more than adept at conveying their characters' seamy sides, which at least lends weight to the distasteful revelations in which the story is rooted, and are reasonably effective overall in cutting the desired profiles of glib entertainers taking full advantage of fame's perks."
Peter Bradshaw
of The Guardian
rated the film two out of five stars, saying it had "rich potential for suspense, for drama, for comedy, for tragedy, for historical colour, for just about everything. Yet in the most perplexing way, Egoyan's movie doesn't properly deliver on any of these. It is muddled, over-wrought, and somehow too cerebral and fastidious to tell the story straight . . . There are diverting moments but it adds up to nothing in particular. The question is not so much where the truth lies, but why we should care in the first place."
Philip French
of The Observer
called the film "a rich brew that draws on Citizen Kane
and Rashomon
" and ultimately "holds the attention and makes us want to know the outcome."
at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival
.
The Directors Guild of Canada
honored Phillip Barker for Outstanding Production Design in a Feature Film and nominated Egoyan for Outstanding Direction of a Feature Film, Susan Shipton
for Outstanding Picture Editing of a Feature Film, and the movie itself for Outstanding Feature Film.
Egoyan won the Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
, and the film was nominated in the Art Direction/Production Design
, Editing
, Sound
, and Original Score
categories.
and closed captioned
. The unrated version includes an audio track in French. Bonus features on both include The Making of Where The Truth Lies (which has neither commentary nor dialogue) and deleted scenes.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
, written and directed by Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...
. It stars Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
, Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
, and Alison Lohman
Alison Lohman
Alison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
, and is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Rupert Holmes
Rupert Holmes
Rupert Holmes is an American-British composer, singer-songwriter, musician and author of plays, novels and stories. He is best known for his number one pop hit "Escape " and the song "Him", which reached the number 6 position on the Hot 100 U.S. pop chart in 1980...
.
Plot
The film alternates between 1957, when Martin & Lewis-like comedyComedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
team Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
) are at the height of their success, and 1972, when journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman
Alison Lohman
Alison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
) is determined to unravel the mystery of a young woman found dead in their hotel suite 15 years before.
In 1957, immediately after hosting a 39-hour-long polio
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
telethon in a Miami television studio, Morris and Collins fly north to open the new showroom of a New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
hotel run by mobster Sally San Marco (Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...
), who has intimidated them into appearing, in order to improve his own image. In their New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
hotel suite, shortly after their arrival, the nude body of Miami college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
student Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard
Rachel Blanchard
Rachel Elise Blanchard is a Canadian actress.-Early life:Blanchard was born in Toronto, Ontario, and graduated from Havergal College in Toronto, going on to Queen's University.-Career:...
) is found in a bathtub. Maureen, an aspiring journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
working for the summer as a server at the comedy team's Miami hotel (which is also owned by San Marco), had been researching an article for her school newspaper on the comedy team, and had interviewed them in Miami just before she disappeared. Police investigation in no way connects either Morris or Collins to Maureen's death, which is officially attributed to a drug overdose. But almost immediately after her body is discovered, the two men's comedy partnership is dissolved, despite their enormous success and the closeness of their dependence on one another.
Meanwhile, many unanswered questions remain for any investigators of Maureen's death; the most confusing aspect is how Maureen's body made it from Miami to New Jersey at the same time the comedians were traveling.
Fifteen years later, in 1972, Karen, who as a young polio survivor first met the duo at the same telethon portrayed in the movie's opening sequence, accepts a job to ghostwrite
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
Vince Collins' autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
— a deal from which Collins will earn $1 million, which he badly needs. The project is complicated by the fact that she keeps receiving anonymously-sent chapters from a book about the one-time duo that Lanny Morris himself has written; Karen had some prior knowledge of Morris' book project. Karen, who has idolized the comedians ever since first meeting them, encounters Morris, accompanied by his faithful valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
Reuben (David Hayman
David Hayman
David Hayman is a Scottish film and television actor and director, best known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial and Retribution. He also a prominent supporter of the SNP's call for Scottish independence....
), by chance in the first-class section of a flight, where she has to share a dinner table with them. Wishing to keep her identity secret, during the meal she introduces herself as "Bonnie Trout", the name of the best friend with whom she has traded apartments. Morris and Karen hit it off and have sex in his hotel. He disappears the next morning, apparently without leaving her a note.
Under her own name, Karen begins to work on the Collins autobiography. Complications arise when Collins invites her to an all-day working session at his Los Angeles home and she learns that Morris will be joining them as well. Near-panic ensues; she abruptly invents an excuse to leave, but meets Lanny in the driveway, and her masquerade is revealed — Lanny discovers she has lied to him about who she is, and Collins discovers that the woman he thought was helping him write his memoirs is having or has had an affair with his ex-partner. He agrees to continue with the book, but creates a situation in which he hopes to be able to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
Karen into staying away from the story of Maureen O'Flaherty, which is Karen's consuming interest. Thus, after plying Karen with wine and drugs, Collins manipulates her into having sex with a young aspiring singer named Alice. He photographs the two women in compromising positions and tells Karen that unless she tells the publisher that there is nothing odd or improper surrounding Maureen's death, he will make the pictures public.
Karen discovers that Maureen had secretly recorded her interactions with Morris and Collins. Gradually, it becomes clear what really happened that night 15 years before: the three had engaged in a menage a trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
, fueled by drugs and booze, and at some point Collins tried to have sex with Morris, who resisted violently. When Collins retreated to his room, Maureen tried to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
Morris to keep this information secret: in 1957, it would have finished Collins professionally and personally if it had come out that he was bisexual. Collins passed out in his room, Morris in his, and Maureen fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, she was dead.
Fifteen years later, Collins indeed faces the destruction of his life when Karen begins to uncover the story; Morris is horrified by the effects of what Karen is doing, and Karen discovers more about Morris' "fix-it man", Reuben. While both Morris and Collins were convinced the other murdered Maureen, they smuggled her body in a crate full of lobsters (a gift from San Marco
San Marco
San Marco is one of the six sestieri of Venice, lying in the heart of the city. San Marco also includes the island of San Giorgio Maggiore...
) with Reuben's assistance, and the crate was shipped ahead of them to the New Jersey hotel. The tape recorder was on during the entire night, but the tape was missing all these years. Reuben confessed to Karen that he murdered Maureen to protect his employers' reputations, and produces the tape to confirm his guilt. At the end of the film, Karen commits to Maureen's mother that she will publish the truth after she dies, so as to spare her the pain of learning about her daughter's indiscretions.
Cast
- Kevin BaconKevin BaconKevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
as Lanny Morris - Colin FirthColin FirthSirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
as Vince Collins - Alison LohmanAlison LohmanAlison Marion Lohman is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films White Oleander, Where the Truth Lies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Flicka and Drag Me to Hell as well as smaller parts in Matchstick Men, Big Fish, Gamer, and Beowulf...
as Karen O'Connor - Rachel BlanchardRachel BlanchardRachel Elise Blanchard is a Canadian actress.-Early life:Blanchard was born in Toronto, Ontario, and graduated from Havergal College in Toronto, going on to Queen's University.-Career:...
as Maureen O'Flaherty - Maury ChaykinMaury ChaykinMaury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...
as Sally San Marco - Sonja BennettSonja BennettSonja Bennett is a Canadian actress who portrayed Marcie Brasko in Battlestar Galactica.Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Bennett has acted in various genre series including Eureka, Stargate Atlantis, Painkiller Jane, The Dead Zone, Cold Squad, as well as other Vancouver filmed television...
as Bonnie Trout - David HaymanDavid HaymanDavid Hayman is a Scottish film and television actor and director, best known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial and Retribution. He also a prominent supporter of the SNP's call for Scottish independence....
as Reuben - Kristin Adams as Alice
Production
Rupert Holmes admittedly patterned Vince and Lanny on his childhood idols, Dean MartinDean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
and Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, although the plot was pure fiction. Holmes called it a study of "the trust that must exist between any show business team who puts their lives in each other's hands" and "what happens when they no longer trust each other." Shortly after the novel was published, Holmes was asked who he envisioned playing the lead roles in a film adaptation. He suggested Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...
, Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
, and Kate Hudson
Kate Hudson
Kate Garry Hudson is an American actress. She came to prominence in 2001 after winning a Golden Globe and receiving several nominations, including a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Almost Famous. She then starred in the hit film How to Lose a Guy in 10...
, or Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
, Ben Stiller
Ben Stiller
Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....
"and any actress in America who's shorter than they are." Tongue-in-cheek, he continued, "Or what about Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed...
? This is probably why I'm not a studio head."
Scenes in Vince's home were filmed at the Stahl House
Stahl House
Case Study House #22, aka Stahl House, is a modernist styled house in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, California that was designed by Pierre Koenig...
in Los Angeles, while the Brantford Airport
Brantford Airport
Brantford Airport , also known as Brantford Municipal Airport, is a registered aerodrome located west southwest of the City of Brantford, in The County of Brant, Ontario, Canada. Brantford Flight Centre is the fixed base operator run by the Brantford Flying Club, and provides flight training,...
stood in for Newark International Airport. Other exteriors were filmed in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, with interiors shot at Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, England.
The film's soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
includes "Josephine, Please No Lean on the Bell" performed by Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
, "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles...
, "Oye Como Va" by Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
, and "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic
Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
. "White Rabbit"
White Rabbit (song)
"White Rabbit" is a song from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. It was released as a single and became the band's second top ten success, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100...
, written by Grace Slick
Grace Slick
Grace Slick is an American singer and songwriter, who was one of the lead singers of the rock groups The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, and was a solo artist, for nearly three decades, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s...
and originally recorded by Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, is featured prominently in one scene, while "You Know, You Know" and "Sanctuary", performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra, appear in the film's most erotic sequence.
The film received an NC-17 rating in the United States due to scenes depicting a threesome
Threesome
A threesome is a group of three engaged in the same activity. In relation to a sexual activity a threesome refer to the activity involving three people of any gender or sexual orientation...
and graphic lesbian sex. Egoyan condemned the MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
decision as "a violent act of censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
", while Bacon stated, "I don't get it, when I see films (that) are extremely violent, extremely objectable sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more clothes on." Both suggested that homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
may have played a role in the decision, as the film deals in part with repressed homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. THINKFilm
THINKFilm
THINKFilm is a privately held production and distribution company founded in September 2001. It has been a division of David Bergstein’s Capitol Films since 2006. Bergstein also serves as the company’s chairman...
executives opted to release the film unrated in the United States. The rating was later a minor subject of analysis in the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
This Film is Not Yet Rated is a 2006 independent documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released limited on...
.
Box office
The film premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival2005 Cannes Film Festival
The 2005 Cannes Film Festival started on May 11 and ran until May 22. Twenty movies from 13 countries were selected to compete. The awards were announced on May 21...
and was shown at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
, the Woodstock Film Festival
Woodstock Film Festival
The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was begun in 1999. The festival was first conceived as a part of the Woodstock '99 Music and Arts Festival, with movies being screened as part of that event.-History:...
, and Festival do Rio in Brazil, before going into theatrical release in Canada on October 7, 2005 and the United States the following week. It grossed $872,142 in North America and $2,605,536 in other markets, for a total worldwide box office of $3,477,678. The unrated designation hurt the film's financial return, since many theatres would not show it.
Critical reception
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times observed, "Mr. Egoyan . . . tends to stray from the storytelling straight and narrow, taking a generally metafictionMetafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
al approach to narrative. Here, he seems to want to deconstruct celebrity through the familiar mechanics of a murder mystery. Yet because he also doesn't want to be imprisoned by genre, he tries to shake loose its rules, much as Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
did in 1973 with his laid-back take on Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
's Long Goodbye
The Long Goodbye (film)
The Long Goodbye is a 1973 neo noir, directed by Robert Altman and based on Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Big Sleep in 1946...
. It almost works, at least in part . . . In the end, it is Mr. Egoyan's fealty to the novel, its feints and dodges, that proves the film's undoing." She called Kevin Bacon "excellent" but questioned "the calamitous miscasting" of Alison Lohman, "whose ingénue looks and uncontrolled voice are wildly out of sync with the film's other performances and self-consciously lurid atmosphere . . . [S]he has neither the chops nor the core mystery that might have made Mr. Egoyan's pseudo-David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
ambitions for his film fly."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
called it "film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
right down to the plot we can barely track; we're reminded of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
asking Raymond Chandler who did it in The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978...
and Chandler saying he wasn't sure . . . Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard (film)
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett...
. . . I have seen Where the Truth Lies twice and enjoyed it more when I understood its secrets."
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
rated the film one star, calling it a "monumental misfire" and adding, "This movie isn't over-the-top - it doesn't know where the top is. Trash addicts will eat up every graphic minute, even if they prefer to wait for the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
."
Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
called the film "compulsively watchable even as laughably over-the-top moments start piling up. To be truthful, most of it is high-gloss trash. I'm prepared to recommend Truth despite this - or maybe because of it . . . Bacon has the showier role, and he wrings everything he can out of it. But Firth is equally impressive . . . Truths descent into camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
happens mostly during the scenes set in the '70s. Lohman is a big part of the problem . . . she's so shrill and annoying as Karen that you end up wishing she were the one floating in that tub."
Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the film "unconvincing" and "jumbled" and added, "Fractured narrative devices are further encumbered by multiple narration sources, incidental characters who function as mere devices, and uncertain time frames. More bothersome still is the stiff, on-topic nature of most of the film; with Karen in full interrogation mode nearly all the time, scenes and characters are rarely allowed to breathe and develop of their own accord . . . a problem unrelieved by Lohman's performance, which reveals nothing beneath the surface or between the lines. Bacon and Firth both prove more than adept at conveying their characters' seamy sides, which at least lends weight to the distasteful revelations in which the story is rooted, and are reasonably effective overall in cutting the desired profiles of glib entertainers taking full advantage of fame's perks."
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
rated the film two out of five stars, saying it had "rich potential for suspense, for drama, for comedy, for tragedy, for historical colour, for just about everything. Yet in the most perplexing way, Egoyan's movie doesn't properly deliver on any of these. It is muddled, over-wrought, and somehow too cerebral and fastidious to tell the story straight . . . There are diverting moments but it adds up to nothing in particular. The question is not so much where the truth lies, but why we should care in the first place."
Philip French
Philip French
Philip French is a British film critic and former radio producer.French, the son of an insurance salesman, was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School, read Law at Oxford University. and post graduate study in Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington on a scholarship.He has been...
of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
called the film "a rich brew that draws on Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and Rashomon
Rashomon
Rashomon may refer to:* Rashōmon, the former main city gate in two Japanese capital cities, Heijokyō and Heiankyō * Rashōmon , a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1915...
" and ultimately "holds the attention and makes us want to know the outcome."
Awards and nominations
Atom Egoyan was nominated for the Palme d'OrPalme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival
2005 Cannes Film Festival
The 2005 Cannes Film Festival started on May 11 and ran until May 22. Twenty movies from 13 countries were selected to compete. The awards were announced on May 21...
.
The Directors Guild of Canada
Directors Guild of Canada
The Directors Guild of Canada is a Canadian labour union, founded in 1962, which represents more than 3,700 professionals from 48 different occupations in the Canadian film and television industry. The DGC represents directors, assistant directors, location managers, production assistants and...
honored Phillip Barker for Outstanding Production Design in a Feature Film and nominated Egoyan for Outstanding Direction of a Feature Film, Susan Shipton
Susan Shipton
Susan Shipton is an award-winning Canadian film editor.Shipton has collaborated with director Atom Egoyan on eight projects. Her editing credits include The Adjuster, Love and Death on Long Island, I Love a Man in Uniform, Foolproof, When Night Is Falling, Breakfast with Scot, Exotica, Where the...
for Outstanding Picture Editing of a Feature Film, and the movie itself for Outstanding Feature Film.
Egoyan won the Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
26th Genie Awards
The 26th Genie Awards were held on March 13, 2006 to honour films released in 2005. The ceremony was held at the Carlu theatre in Toronto. The ceremony was hosted by Lisa Ray and Terry David Mulligan.-Best Picture:...
, and the film was nominated in the Art Direction/Production Design
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian film art direction/production design.-16th Genie Awards:* François Laplante, Le Confessionnal...
, Editing
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Editing
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Editing is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian film editor.-1st Genie Awards:* Stan Cole, Murder By Decree* Jean Beaudin, Cordelia* Ron Wisman, Fish Hawk...
, Sound
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Overall Sound
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Overall Sound is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian sound designer.-1st Genie Awards:* Karl Scherer, Austin Grimaldi, Dino Pigat, Joe Grimaldi, The Changeling...
, and Original Score
Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Score
The Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Score is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original score.-1st Genie Awards:* Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza,Murder By Decree...
categories.
Soundtrack
Commercial songs from film, but not on soundtrack- White Rabbit - Performed by Wonderland Band
- Josephine, Please No Lean On The Bell - Performed by Louis Prima
- Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Nobody (And There's Nobody Cares For Me) Medley - Performed by Blue Grotto Band
- Spinning Wheel - Performed by Blood Sweat and Tears
- White Light - Performed by Junior's Eyes
- Whisper Not - Performed by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
- Oye Como Va - Performed by Santana
- You Know,You Know - Performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra
- Theme For Lester Young - Performed by Charles MingusCharles MingusCharles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
- Maggot Brain - Performed by FunkadelicFunkadelicFunkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
- Sanctuary - Performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra
DVD release
On February 8, 2006, Sony Pictures released two versions of the film, one rated R and the other unrated, on DVD. Both are in anamorphic widescreenAnamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
and closed captioned
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it...
. The unrated version includes an audio track in French. Bonus features on both include The Making of Where The Truth Lies (which has neither commentary nor dialogue) and deleted scenes.