Trivia

The end credits song, performed by Australian singer Kate Ceberano, with music by Nerida Tyson-Chew and lyrics by Richard Franklin, was nominated for Best Original Song for a Feature Film, Mini-Series, Telemovie or TV Series, at the 1997 Australian Guild of Screen Composers Awards.

Director Richard Franklin's first encounter with 'Brilliant Lies' was a scaled down stage version featuring the original cast at Frankston in Victoria, Australia shortly after its main Melbourne theatre season also in Victoria, Australia.

The dramatic interplay of sex and power within 'Brilliant Lies' afforded filmmaker Richard Franklin an electrifying project following his acclaimed screen adaptation of Hannie Rayson's poignant drama, 'Hotel Sorrento'.

The idea of adding flashbacks was the idea of co-screenwriter Peter Fitzpatrick. The screenplay remained very close to David Williamson's original source stage play with the major difference between the stage production and this movie version being the addition of flashbacks. These flashbacks illustrate the wildly differing perceptions of the central harassment issue and the public hearing at the finale - the play having ended in the conciliation room.

Of the story, to quote the film's source playwright David Williamson, "there are two stories going on simultaneously in 'Brilliant Lies'. One is the story of Susy, trying to get $40,000 out of her ex-employer for harassment. The other story is that of the two sisters, Susy and Katy, trying to come to terms with their rather difficult family past involving their father and their brother...I think part of the reason the girls, Katy and Susy, behave the way they do in the present is to do with what happened with them in the past, and so we, the audience, have to see eventually what did happen to them...".