Lie with Me | Review

Soft-core flick offers genitalia galore and not much more.

Each year there are literally hundreds of loves stories that pollute the cineplexes and its trim pickings on those that get the whole ecstasy, lust-before-love equation part just right. For several reasons beyond logical explanations, there’s a discussion that rarely gets treated in storylines – the one that sees what happens when two people of the opposing sexes first get together for 72 hours of unadulterated sex with plenty of changing of white bed sheets and empty pizza boxes. Based on Tamara Berger’s novel and her own screenplay – this could have definitively have used a lot more work in the script stage and could have focused more of its attention on the titillation, the eroticism and the show and tell game that adults play.

Playing off the urban sweltering summer landscape, slow-motion visual bits accompanied by the female’s perspective in a male lingo describe where her pleasure zones are located. Via the p.o.v of a female protagonist, the attractive Lauren Lee Smith plays the kind of gal who doesn’t bother with first names or first dates. While the coffee table littered of porn videos second her thoughts so do her random encounters with dudes. While one male figure is demanded not to cum, her new beau (Eric Balfour) apparently is good enough for the job even if he is down for the count in less than 10 minutes.

Clement Virgo’s debut briefly touches upon that lustful and lust-filled energy that can be found in such chance happenings, unfortunately Lie with Me manages to come across as a gratuitous sexposé rather than an insightful look into what makes people bare not only their bodies, but their souls. Simply put – the narrative is horrible, there are no reasons for these people to be together. Working with themes of instant gratification and odd attractions, this grows more and more weary by the minute. From the conversation pieces with hack job dialogue littered in F-words, to let’s see how many shots we can insert of a naked girl talking in and out of her bathtub with unconvincing phone conversations and a cast of flakey secondary characters who are featured in phony separation modes and last breathes on planet earth.

While the young bodies are nice to look at and the film’s opening shot is one of extreme beauty, but once lines and emotions are expressed it feels like nails on a chalkboard. Where Winterbottom’s 9 Songs at least tried to tap into the spastic energy and the complications that come once the intensity levels drop, Virgo’s Lie with Me makes no attempt at describing those difficulties, at describing obsession and thus making the whole breakup and reunion shtick afterwards incredibly hard to buy.

Rating 0.5 stars