Lie with Me (2022)
10/10
Not One Flaw
9 April 2024
I could not find one flaw in this film. How is it that the French have made so many masterly films revolving around homosexuality ? And in a way that is truly adult and involving ? ' Theo and Hugo ' ' Sauvage ' ' Presque Rien ' and believe me the list could go on. I just hope in our troubled times films of such quality will not dry up. But to return to ' Arrete Toi Avec Tes Mensonges ' ( why didn't they just call it ' Stop Your Lies ? ) I have admired Philippe Bresson's books for a long time, and it has taken me a while to dare approach this film based on his book. I feared disappointment. Autobiographical it tells the truth, and it is basically about an elderly man's return to a provincial French town that he came from. And here the present and the past faultlessly interweave. At the age of 17 he fell in love with a youth of his age group who could not truly admit to his sexual orientation. Life parts them, and society and its prejudices and internalised homophobia has a large responsibility for that, and in the 1980's there was a lot of homophobia around. No spoilers except to say the elderly man finds out what has truly happened to the youth he loved, and still does. The film itself is finely directed and I cannot single out one of the cast above another. In my opinion a faultless cast in a faultless film. I cried. I cried seeing how much people have to lie to themselves, and are they cowards to do so ? The end of the film gives an answer to this and I wholly endorsed the ending. A film everyone should see.
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