| The Lie | |
| Director: | Veena Sud |
| Music: | Tamar-kali |
| Cinematography: | Peter Wunstorf |
| Editing: | Phil Fowler |
| Distributor: | Amazon Studios |
| Runtime: | 97 minutes |
| Country: |
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| Language: | English |
| Budget: | < $10 million[2] |
The Lie is a 2018 psychological horror film written and directed by Veena Sud. The film is a remake of the 2015 German film We Monsters,[3] and stars Mireille Enos, Peter Sarsgaard and Joey King.[4] Jason Blum serves as a producer under his Blumhouse Television banner.
The Lie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2018. It was later released on October 6, 2020, by Amazon Studios, as the first installment in the anthological Welcome to the Blumhouse film series.
Divorced father Jay drives his daughter Kayla to a ballet retreat. On the way, they find Kayla's friend, Britney, walking on the side of the road, and give her a lift to the same retreat. After pulling over so Britney can go to the bathroom in the woods, Jay hears Kayla scream and finds her sitting alone on a bridge over a river. Kayla claims she pushed Britney off the bridge. Jay checks the area for Britney's body, but does not find it and assumes she drowned and was washed away. Kayla finds Britney's purse and they go to see Kayla's mother, Rebecca, an attorney.
At Rebecca's home, Kayla tells her that she murdered Britney. Britney's father, Sam, arrives in search of his daughter. When he asks to speak to Kayla, Rebecca lies, saying she is at the doctor. Later on, Sam gets suspicious and returns to discover that Rebecca lied and Kayla is at home. After a physical altercation with Jay, Sam threatens to go to the police. Noting that Britney had a bruise on her face, Jay convinces Rebecca to try and put suspicion on Sam for the disappearance. She contacts a police associate, Detective Kenji Tagata, to accuse Sam of abusing Britney. When Kenji interrogates Sam, he denies hitting Britney and admits that she has run away before. Kenji interviews Kayla, who says that Sam has a bad temper and hit Britney before.
Sam spots Kayla outside Jay's apartment and tries to grab her, but she retreats back into the house as he is chasing her, banging on the windows, and screaming her name. Jay and Rebecca try to bury Britney's phone behind Sam's house, but he catches them in the act. Before they flee, Sam tells them that he knows Kayla killed Britney. When Sam appears in front of their car, Rebecca purposefully drives into him. Jay and Rebecca consider calling for help before letting him bleed to death and leaving his corpse in the road.
The next morning, as Jay and Rebecca scrub Sam's blood off her car, Britney suddenly appears, alive and well, asking to speak to Kayla. Britney admits her disappearance was no more than an elaborate ruse between her and Kayla to allow for Britney to visit her boyfriend. Britney becomes uncomfortable and leaves after noticing a bloodied rag, and their suspicious reactions. Jay and Rebecca confront Kayla, who tearfully admits that she went along with Britney's plan, and escalated the lie by pretending to "push" Britney off the bridge, hoping that the pseudo-tragedy would bring her divorced parents back together. As the family embrace and Kayla begs her parents not to leave her, the doorbell rings and incoming police sirens are heard.
Principal photography on the film began in January 2018.[5] Its working title was Between the Earth and the Sky.[4] The film is set in New York[6] and filmed in the Toronto area.[7]
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2018.[8] In August 2020, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film, and premiered it on October 6, 2020. Along with Black Box, it's one of the first two movies released from Blumhouse Productions's 8-film anthology Welcome to the Blumhouse.[9]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "Queasily compelling without ever truly coming together, The Lie won't fool many viewers seeking worthwhile horror fare."[10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[11]
Kate Erbland of IndieWire wrote, "Too stupid to be the hard-hitting drama it was first sold as and too self-important to be the black comedy it really should be, Sud’s film is a master class in bad decision-making, improbable choices, and overwrought acting."[12] A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave it a C- grade, calling the film "laughably ludicrous" and saying that it "seems to fancy itself a meditation on the extremes parents will go to on their children’s behalf, but it’s curiously disinterested in what should be its driving dramatic force: how Kayla’s crime—and how little it seems to weigh on her conscience—might challenge their unconditional love for her."[13]