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| 2.31:1 DVD capture: Where the Truth Lies |
The Film |
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| Buy the WHERE THE TRUTH LIES poster at Moviegoods (click on image) |
Canadian filmmakers tend to expose their limitations when they mimic American pop (see: the oeuvres of Jerry Ciccoritti and Mary Harron), and Atom Egoyan, who adapts his signature post-modernism to the Boogie Nights/Goodfellas paradigm in Where the Truth Lies, is no exception. Part of the problem is that it's almost impossible to empathize with journo Karen O'Connor's (Alison Lohman) attraction to the world of Lanny (Kevin Bacon, in a career-best turn) and Vince (Colin Firth), a quasi-Martin & Lewis rended asunder by a scandal years before--not only because these movies are morality tales and thus must initially offer some vicarious thrills, but also because Egoyan is such a Martian that his looking glass isn't perversely seductive (like, say, Blue Velvet's), only off-putting. Indeed, at the forefront of one's mind throughout Where the Truth Lies is whether Egoyan intended it to be so ridiculous, from the inscrutable casting of Firth as a Vaudevillian entertainer to the cornball "Alice in Wonderland" imagery (he even uses Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" on the soundtrack as though he thinks its meaning is hidden) to the '70s period markers (big moustaches for the boys, big afros for the dark-skinned extras) to, my personal favourite, Lohman playing Karen as a nine-year-old by putting shoes on her knees. That being said, perhaps more disconcerting than Egoyan's failure to either beat 'em or join 'em is that after all these years, he's still making lugubrious, young-man's art that wallows in Sartrean despair. |
The DVD
Sony distributes the TH!NKFilm release Where the Truth Lies on DVD in separate versions labelled "Unrated Theatrical Edition" and "DVD Edition," the latter apparently presenting the film in pan-and-scan and running two minutes shorter than the former. The 2.31:1 anamorphic widescreen image on the unrated disc is slightly windowboxed but little else about it rankles. Since a large portion of Where the Truth Lies is made up of gauzy flashbacks with faux-Robert Richardson lighting, the transfer's fidelity to the film's aesthetic might have some viewers crying foul, but it looks exactly as it did in theatres and, as a bonus, there is remarkably little edge-enhancement for a 'scope title from Sony. The flat terrific Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is of consistently sparkling clarity and persuasive transparency during the musical numbers/"comedy" routines. (They sound appropriately "live.") There isn't much in the way of supplementary material, just an obtuse featurette that ostensibly covers "The Making of Where the Truth Lies" (6 mins.) and various deleted scenes sorted by whether they fall under "The Father Theme" (2 mins.) or, appropriately, "Various Deleted Scenes" (8 mins.). The making-of is like a B-roll compilation courtesy of someone learning to use Windows Movie Maker (though it does manage to communicate that this was no penny-ante production), while most of the elisions are incidental bits of business like Karen trying to talk her way onto an airplane, though there's a nice, if derivative, match-dissolve from Rachel Blanchard's face to Alison Lohman's. "The Father Theme" features more of Lohman in her ludicrous Dorf on Golf getup (just because she passed for fourteen in Matchstick Men doesn't mean she should keep pushing the envelope), which I suspect had as much to do with this narrative digression--wherein young Karen's father has made her the subject of a magazine article--hitting the cutting-room floor as the fact that it leads to a cul-de-sac. Trailers for The Dying Gaul (which cues up on startup) The Warrior, The Tenants, London, Chasing Ghosts, End Game, and The Memory of a Killer round out the platter.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.
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DVD GRADES:
Image A
Sound A
Extras C |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
107 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.31:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1,
French DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English, French
DVD-9
Region One
Sony
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Published: March 16, 2006
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