directed by:
Pascal Payant written by: Pascal Payant genre: Thriller |
A floating body in a pool is always a great way to get people immediately paying attention, whether it’s in a movie like “The Art Of Telling Lies,” or as I would suspect, in real life. The situation hasn’t come up for me…yet, but that visual aside, I gotta say, some of the camera work you’ll see right at the very beginning of this movie is superbly gripping. I’ve been reading a lot lately about what a film technically “needs” to satisfy the modern age of moviegoers, and “The Art Of Telling Lies” immediately starts ticking the right boxes. From intriguing characters and clever camera movements, to an air of mystery with hints of action to follow, Pascal Payant’s latest offering quickly gets us watching with a real mix of attitude and character.
Things proceed to get both pretty weird and strangely intense as four complete strangers are introduced to each other in a very elaborate house. They all have unique backgrounds, ranging from politics to online influence, and they seem tied together by the most serious of them all - their host, Valter. Intentionally confrontational as he welcomes his guests, but reserved in a way that we also don’t quite know what the heck his deal is either, I know we’re ultimately supposed to be spending these first moments of the movie wondering about how everybody got here and why they’re all in the same place, but I immediately wanted to know more about this mysterious host of theirs. Soon enough, he sits them all down with a glass of wine in a fancy dining room, locks the door behind him, and then proceeds to explain to his guests that the real reason they’re all there is because they’ve all been caught red handed in a scandal of some sort. Take the good doctor Isaac, for example - he helped a bunch of people die with his medical assistance, even though he knew it was currently illegal in his country. In fact, it carries a fourteen-year sentence per case, and it sounds like he’s performed more than a handful of these throughout his time. Valter plays him an actual recording of a conversation he had with a prospective client, which, yes, should have been covered by the ol’ doctor-patient privilege privacy pact, so it’s clear that something quite nefarious is going on here. You’ll immediately notice that Ester seems to recognize a voice in the recording as well, and as they go on down the line to examine the bad things that each of these guests has done, you start to get the sense that they’re much more connected than any of them had assumed at first. Some of these scenarios are outright horrible, like Malin, the journalist, for example, who apparently stood and watched her kid swim until she drowned. Noah certainly ain’t innocent either, and of course, neither is Ester. They’ve all got some kind of secret they’d probably kill to make sure it never comes to light, and Valter himself, is revealed to also be a very, very bad man. He might appear to be running the show, but he’s just as f**ked as the rest of them are. One of those keys that I mentioned about modern-day filmmaking? You gotta capture the interest of your audience in a way that will ensure they don’t start reaching for their phone to doom scroll as they pretend to pay attention - and you’ve gotta make that happen as soon as possible, preferably on the inside of the first twenty minutes at the latest. Coming in hot at around the eighteen-minute mark, you’ll find a magnificent twist takes place when something seriously savage happens to one of the main characters we’ve only just met, who will…let’s say…not be continuing on this adventure with the rest of them. As those that remain in the movie begin to realize that the videos and clips they’d been shown have got to belong to someone that’s not even there with them, they begin to explore the house to see what else they can figure out, entering a maze of cat-and-mouse-style mystery they cannot escape from. They reference a guy named Thomas, who might be the puppet master pulling the strings, but obviously, none of them know nearly enough on their own to be able to solve this puzzle. If they’re going to get out of this place alive, it’s clear that they might just all have to find a way to somehow work together. There are so many things that I loved about what Payant has written and chose to show us in this film. I felt like he assembled together a spectacular group for this ensemble cast, and there are no discernible weak points among them. They’re all unique characters, so they all needed their own style, and Pascal did an excellent job of finding the right people for the right roles. One of the BEST parts of “The Art Of Telling Lies,” hands down, is that he expertly uses the house itself as a character. It has personality, and it has no problem expressing itself. Through bursts of audio and rooms that hold clues, the house that holds them is every bit as important to this plotline moving forward as any of the characters are. Of course, someone out there is still behind all the madness they’re enduring in the house, but it continues to be an unknown variable that is revealed through the quirks that take place within the setting itself. If they leave, then all these people will have their scandals exposed, but the clock is ticking, and they’ve gotta figure out this mystery soon. As tensions flare, the walls of the castle are closing in on them quickly.
I really liked that we had no choice but to treat everyone as a potential suspect, as we watched, no matter what the circumstances would have been, to bring them there. I think there are certainly some characters, like Isaac, who seem like more of a victim in this situation than others by comparison if we’re talkin’ about what got them all stuck here, which makes for another interesting dynamic and dimension of the story. None of them seems particularly proud of what they’ve done & they’re all guilty of something in their own way, so “The Art Of Telling Lies” is engaging on that level too, because who do you root for? Are we supposed to really sit here and want this bunch of potential baddies to get out of this situation? Objectively speaking, I know that there are more twists and turns in this film than some folks are likely going to be able to follow the first time around, because Payant adds a new layer with practically every line of dialogue or new scene in “The Art Of Telling Lies.” This is one of those films that if you got up to get some popcorn to munch, you’d be lost by the time you got back to the couch if you didn’t press pause, so make sure that you do. While that’s an intriguing way to make a movie, the flipside of that coin is that viewers will always have a tough time keeping up with it, because it’s basically impossible to know what the mystery they’re trying to solve really is, or which character you really want to keep an eye on. Payant gives you tiny crumbs of information along the way, while adding more to the mix of his mystery to keep us all continually guessing…so it’s hard to feel like we’re being rewarded for any theories we create along the way, because the moment we figure something out, it gets shrouded within more layers of mystery. Even when you think you’ve got things finally straightened out, you’ll look down at the time and realize there’s still about half the freakin’ movie to go! Stick with it through the subtitles, flashbacks, and the amazing art you’ll see on the walls in the background; it’s a smorgasbord for the eyeballs, but remain focused, or Payant will have no problem leaving you behind as he keeps the story moving at full speed. The latter half does make it clearer, and credit where credit is due, as long as you’re paying attention, you’ll see that Payant leaves no stone unturned as he ties up every loose end, which is an impressive undertaking considering what a tangled web he had woven. By the end, you’re engrossed in what has become an emotionally powerful film, even if you’re a bit taxed mentally. It’s definitely clever, and it’s definitely well worth watching - I’m going with a solid four stars out of five for “The Art Of Telling Lies.” |
|
|
More To Check Out.
|
