16/11/2023 - The SkyShowtime series, produced by El Deseo, depicts a career woman’s struggle to turn her lies into truth while keeping her daily life intact even as it is falling apart

Written by Blanca Andrés Gómez, Nerea Castro and Pol Cortecans and directed by Félix Sabroso and Marta Font, and selected at the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF) in the International Competition dedicated to series, Fleeting Lies [+see also:
interview: Esther García
series profile] (comprising eight 30-minute episodes) takes us to a parallel universe in which kitsch becomes chic and what’s too much becomes the undisputed protagonist of every frame. Even if Pedro Almodóvar isn’t involved in the direction (he is nevertheless the executive producer, together with his brother Agustín and with Esther García), his aura is strongly felt. Dominated by an aesthetic and visual universe reminiscent of 1980s soap operas, enriched, however, by a very effective dose of self-mockery and vindicated bad taste, the series Fleeting Lies reminds us of Almodóvar's unconventional universe, his constant search for a balance between blinding colours and formal elegance.

On the eve of a key moment in her career, Lucía (Elena Anaya), director of a beauty treatment technology company, is accused of industrial espionage by her rival, such infamous calumnies that they cause her dismissal. Incapable of facing a situation that is nothing short of dramatic, Lucía starts to lie, to create a parallel universe within her in which the drama she’s experiencing vanishes as if by magic. Overwhelmed by her own lies, the protagonist seems to go ever deeper into a black hole of subterfuge and anguish, of unspoken words and dramatic script changes.

Lucía is proud of her life and her career, a strong woman who has reached the goals she had set for herself, thus joining the exclusive club of those men and (few) women who can boast a more than comfortable standard of living (for now, only biological children are missing to complete the picture). The accusation of industrial espionage falls on her head like a guillotine, nipping in the bud her dreams of a bright and glittering future with her future husband and his two children. Determined to prove her innocence, Lucía decides to hide the truth from all her loved ones, wearing a mask that becomes grotesque with time. Amongst the characters involved, Lucía isn't the only one hiding something, however, and we realise that the truth is ultimately only a matter of point of view.

Fleeting Lies is a delightfully irreverent comedy about appearances, about the downside of a life based solely on consumerist ideals with a heteronormative flavour. At times camp in turning reality into a deliberately exaggerated and kitsch universe, the series actually shows us the efforts the protagonist has to make to keep up appearances, to keep her comfortable and reassuring bourgeois life intact. Unable to free herself from a prison she has constructed for herself, will Lucía be able to face the truth, to free herself from ideals that suffocate more than liberate her?

Fleeting Lies was produced by El Deseo and sold internationally by Paramount Global Distribution. The first episode was broadcast on 9 October on SkyShowtime.

(Translated from Italian)