The 2018 film ‘The Lie’ starring Joey King, Peter Sarsgaard, Mireille Enos is a crime film that confuses itself into the horror genre. Director Veena Sud brings to us the story of teen who murders her friend and how her parents try to clean up her tracks.
Joey King as the 15-year-old Kayla is a detestable brat. Peter Sarsgaard & Mireille Enos play Jay & Rebecca & slip into the roles of Kayla’s desperate protective parents with ease. While the actors elevate their roles, a shoddy screenplay pulls the movie down. There are some unnecessary slow sequences that are meant to build-up suspense, the kind typical to the horror genre, that does nothing to build any intrigue or terror in this film. Instead, it’s just annoying.
The movie did give me the chills, but only because of all the snow laden roads and houses we get to see in the film. Just watching the ending swathes of snow can make viewers from warmer places shiver for a second. The content itself is not as gripping, since the plot is bit of a muddle. Kayla the protagonist comes across as someone you would want to give a few tight slaps to. Her behavior makes one hope that her parents would send her to prison instead of protecting her.
As a viewer, I felt like the dialogues weren’t delivered clearly, the audio was too soft and needed subtitles to follow what was happening. Some of the plot twists were ridiculous and unconvincing. Kayla’s parents makes some really bad choices and the climax is slightly surprising and tragically hilarious. Lot of the incongruous scenes in the first half finally begin to make sense.
Had director Veena Sud worked on making this movie a little more crisp and given more dimension to Kayla’s character, ‘The Lie’ could have been more enjoyable. Even though Joey King perfectly portrays her character – a selfish hellion. I would give it a 5/10 rating.