Innocent Lies

I tend to like movies like this one- quiet, destined to be seen on TV late at night after some red wine to quench insomnia. Yeah... some called it a bore, but so was Mansfield Park...to an extent. it's been quite a while since I have seen it and the details are a bit fuzzy, but if a movie of its rank made it in the realm of my daily wanderings, then it has to have at least one quality. Maybe I liked the setting,the cold morning air-the blue air that conveys darkness and mystery to most Poirot series or the landscapist pov it offered at times just to be changed with the eye of a mute detective at others. I almost liked those, but not quite. Being very fond of art, this movie reminded me of Tamara de Lempicka's paintings: very art deco, showing us more than just a glimpse of the 30s aristocracy, very daring without excelling in creativity. just that. the ending was unsurprising,not really a letdown but the deranged late 30s atmosphere, the uncontrollable animalism depicted in different character liaisons saved it.

This film goes into areas that most others are afraid to enter and really makes the best of a great story line. It also has a cast of fantastic actors who play their roles with the right amount of mystique and venomous betrayal. I loved the character of Jeremy, he was well-played and had an amazing level of complexity. He's a completely despicable person, but you can't help but to be drawn to the cunning and disregardful nature of his character. The young lady playing Jeremy's sister is also very believable in her role as the childish, and incestuous girl who can't quite bring herself to get away from her brother. The whole movie is a work of art, and very well done.

You need to understand the times. Frightened by communist spread, many in Europe turned to Nazis for help in fighting the menace especially the wealthy. In 1938, into this milieu, a British detective, played by Adrian Dunbar, seeks to find how a friend had died. The only clue he has leads to the Graves, an English family living in France. The mother is pro Nazi. Two of the siblings seem possibly be in an incestuous relationship. Another sibling had been slain in an accident years before. This "accident" leads to blackmail and incest. This may be what the deceased friend had discovered that lead to his death.

Stephen Dorff and Gabrielle Anwar play the nearly-grown siblings. Anwar is at the peak of attractiveness. I usually hate to see girls who look like their lips have been smashed by a brick but in this one case I make an exception. She seems to want out of the relationship but can't resist Dorff's touch, even on the eve of her wedding. More murders occur as Dunbar seems about to break the case. But he, too, is under Anwar's spell. He wants to help her escape, when Dorff shows up again. I don't want to spoil it. The photography is marvelous. The music fits the scene. A enchanting look at pre-war France. And I'm sure if Hitler had seen the mother's taste in art, he'd have had her shot. I recommend it to anyone who loves crime and drama, as well as good acting.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

I am a passionate lover of movies and actors. American, foreign, documentaries, independent- all kinds of movies. I usually try to find the silver lining in every movie I watch. Hard work and risk taking deserve at least that much from a viewer. This movie was very irritating to watch. It didn't even follow it's own plot. It would pick up and drop story lines randomly without any logic. Relationships were contrived, some to shock, some for lack of better ideas. Acting was not very inspired, it's hard to see how could it possibly be with this script. It was messy, unfinished and irritating. So much for silver lining on this one.

The cinematography of this film was brilliant, choice of location plus the genius of the camera work kept me enthralled with a shallow and convoluted plot that took red herring to waters it had never been to before. The little hamlet and eccentric interiors made an impossible film watchable, enjoyable even. The premise of the plot was the suicide or murder concept of the hero regarding the best friend and introduced in the first scenes. The rest of the movie was interwoven and seemingly totally disconnected scenes of incest or gratuitous pants dropping or bums in the buff. There were some of the scenes that served no purpose other than to expose an actor's body to the camera or tight shots of Adrian Dunbar's nose. It was as if the editors tossed the dailies up in the air and pasted them together quickly based on aesthetics rather than plot advancement. I think there was a plot at one time in the manuscript but it was discarded and the film became a series of patchwork scenes lacking cohesion. I was glad it was over though it was not easy to tell when that was going to happen because it could have been anywhere along the line. It was not a great film, a dozen yrs old and so aggravating it inspired me to take more time on it and write a 'review' on a pretty bad movie.

....as Visconti showed it in a work such as "la cadeti dei degli" (1969) demands much more than "Innocent lies" 's director can do.Outside the brother and the sister ,and the cop (who is humming twice bribes of the old Irish tune "Carrickfergus" ;the connection with the movie escapes me,I am afraid),the other characters are only silhouettes and you have a feeling that some essential scenes are lacking ,for this a relatively short movie all the same (barely 90 min).Some subplots ,such as the first cop's investigation and suicide are only skimmed over.Ditto for the Jewish wife's scene.As for the incestuous sister's unfortunate fiancé ,he has two or three lines to say and that's it.

The users were harsh when they rated the movie and I can sadly find little fault with that.