![]() Or the fact that the final twist - which, in itself, is a decent jaw-dropper - forces you to think back over the film, and when you do several elements of its logic simply wilt. Or the way that Brittany’s father senses everything yet never acts remotely scared about his daughter’s disappearance. Like the discovery of Brittany’s purse in Jay’s car (could he have been that careless?), or the grungy-B-movie manner in which he then buries it. The drama grows less good when you start toting up the film’s contrivances. And Joey King, from “The Kissing Booth,” creates an all-too-believable “difficult” vulnerable teenager whose agendas may be hidden even from herself. Peter Sarsgaard has always been an actor who gives good torment, and he does that here for a character who has to keep deadpanning it in front of cops, girlfriend, and so on, Jay has a face ripped up by anguish. There are also tense scenes with Rebecca’s former colleague, Detective Kenji (Patti Kim), who knows something is off on the case. He’s the Hitchcockian monkey wrench who keeps throwing himself, with escalating anger, into their perfect plan. The drama grows momentarily arresting when Brittany’s Pakistani father, Sam (Cas Anvar), shows up, eager to know where his daughter is. I first saw “The Lie” at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival, where I read a review that found the characters “dislikable.” Actually, the best thing about the movie, which is a remake of the 2015 German film “We Monsters,” is that these desperate parents do something dislikable, out of defensible motives, so the film gives us the queasy feeling of right and wrong, innocence and guilt all mashed together. As Jay puts it, “They’re coming for her unless we do something.” But if that’s doing the right thing, why does it feel so wrong? It’s not that these two have turned to the dark side they’re trying to do what’s right, which is to save Kayla’s future. Rebecca is a corporate lawyer who was once a prosecutor, and Jay is some sort of local rock musician (which is probably why they’re divorced, though the matchup also feels very Toronto, the city where “The Lie” was filmed, and one that lends the movie its slightly sullen vibe of earnest middle-class hand-wringing). Jay and Kayla’s mother, Rebecca (Mireille Enos, who’s like a more neurasthenic Julianne Moore), are divorced, but their plan to hide a missing girl behind a conspiracy of silence pulls them together. Veena Sud, the writer-director of “The Lie,” has a gift for scenes that erupt into paroxysms of domestic dismay. They’re lower-key thrillers bound together by themes of family, and by the diversity of the talent behind them. ![]() But these movies aren’t horror roller-coasters. 13, which sounds like a vintage Blumhouse run-up to Halloween. “The Lie” is one of eight films produced by Blumhouse, the cutting-edge megaplex thriller and horror factory, all of which are set to be released this year on Amazon Prime as a collection under the title “Welcome to the Blumhouse.” Two of the films drop this week (“The Lie” and “Black Box”), and two on Oct. ![]() (Though a truck sped by.) Easy enough to make an invisible “crime” disappear.Įxcept, of course, that it’s not easy at all, since covering things up in a movie is always a form of karma. After all, no one saw them pick up Brittany no one saw them stop at the side of the road no one saw anything. And so he seizes on a course of action that’s too simple not to seem right: They’ll pretend the whole thing never happened. Jay, who has done nothing wrong, is as desperate to save his daughter as any ordinary man who finds himself in the middle of a thriller is desperate to save himself. But Kayla, wracked with guilt over her part in what happened, is in no condition to placate the cops with an award-worthy performance as the innocent bystander. Most of us have a do-the-right-thing reflex that says: Of course we would report it to the police. The film digs its hooks into us by asking: If you, right now, were in this situation, what would you do? Or as Kayla confesses minutes later, the two had a fight, and Kayla pushed her - but didn’t mean to kill her.
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