Where the Truth Lies

Atom Egoyan's oeuvre is littered with films focused on young women on the precipice of adulthood forced to reevaluate their naive trust in parental figures, from the keenly observed The Sweet Hereafter to the chilling Felicia's Journey. In both form and substance, Where the Truth Lies -- a structurally fractured, almost anti-erotic thriller -- most closely resembles his work in 1994's Exotica.

Based on the potboiler novel by Rupert Holmes, the film tracks the Martin and Lewis-esque comedy team of Vince Collins and Lanny Morris (played respectively by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon) whose lives are twice thrown into turmoil by the appearance of young, blonde reporters who seem to almost intentionally resemble each other. The first appears as the duo is at the height of their powers in 1957 and the discovery of her corpse in their hotel suite following a telethon precipitates the duo's breakup. 15 years later, plucky reporter Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman) is hired to work with the now reclusive Collins on his memoirs but ends up embroiled in both performers' clandestine pasts and sexual fantasies.

The title Where the Truth Lies perfectly encapsulates the film, which features dueling narration by O'Connor and Morris that we're promptly told to doubt. In fact, basically the entire film is made up of different characters' varying accounts of events that play out in Paul Sarossy's gauzy cinematography in a way that makes us feel as if we're watching a dream with nightmarish tinges. This surrealism is only accentuated by scenes unfolding on empty studio backlots and repeated references to "Alice in Wonderland."

As O'Connor, Lohman is underwhelming, maintaining the same deer-in-the-headlights expression as she (unconvincingly) assumes a friend's identity, interviews Collins and, finally, uncovers the truth. Bacon, however, subtly foreshadows his character's private misanthropy even while imbuing him with the charm of a crowdpleaser. And Firth nicely modulates between Collins' elitist propriety and his violent streak.

The 107-minute movie is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound amply supporting an eclectic soundtrack that ranges from Louis Prima to the Mahavishnu Orchestra to Funkadelic. The special features consist of a 5 and a half minute making-of featurette (as lifeless as Lohman's performance) and 8 minutes worth of deleted scenes, the best of which flesh out O'Connor's relationship with her journo father. -- Colin Miller