Where the Truth Lies (2005)

Los Angeles Times
"[G]orgeously shot and designed....The real reason to see it is its style..." 10/14/2005 p.E4

Entertainment Weekly
"[S]exy, tantalizing....A mood of lush romantic decadence -- sleaze made enigmatic -- hovers over WHERE THE TRUTH LIES." -- Grade: B 10/21/2005 p.53-54

Sight and Sound
"The movie has many bravura moments....The filmmakers take an enjoyably skeptical look at the relationship between celebrities and their fans." 12/01/2005 p.83-84

Uncut
"[A] handsome pastiche with a great turn by Bacon..." 01/01/2006 p.130

Widescreen Review
"[The] music is mixed well...which does wonders adding to the overall enjoyability of the soundtrack." 04/01/2006 p.59

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"Where the Truth Lies" is film noir right down to the plot we can barely track; we're reminded of William Faulkner asking Raymond Chandler who did it in "The Big Sleep" and Chandler saying he wasn't sure. Certainly somebody did it in "Where the Truth Lies," or how would a dead waitress from Miami end up in a bathtub in Atlantic City? The waitress was last seen in the Miami suite of Lanny Morris and Vince Collins, two famous 1950s entertainers. Their alibi: They were on TV doing their polio telethon, and then got directly on a plane and flew to New York with a lot of other people, and had a police escort to their hotel, where the body was awaiting them. Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of "Sunset Boulevard," as an entertainer is confronted with events from the past that might best be left forgotten. The movie takes place in 1957 and 1972, and both of those years involve the crucial participation of beautiful young blondes who want to interview the two stars. In 1957, Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Collins (Colin Firth) are at the height of their fame, doing a nightclub act not a million miles apart from Martin and Lewis. The secret of their round-the-clock energy is the use of pills, lots of pills from their Dr. Feelgood, which give them more urgency than they need in the realm of sex. A college student named Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard) arrives at their suite with room service, and when they suggest another kind of service, she seems sort of willing. She wants to interview them for her school paper. It is Maureen who is found dead in Atlantic City, leading to a mystery that is never solved, and to the breakup of Morris and Collins. Flash forward to 1972, and another would-be reporter, Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman). Still in her mid-20s, she negotiates a $1 million book contract for Collins, who needs the money, but tells him he will have to talk about the murder of Maureen O'Flaherty. What Collins doesn't know is that Karen earlier met Lanny Morris on an airplane, followed him to his hotel room, and was dumped the next morning. What a rotter. What neither man knows is that Karen first met them in 1957, when as a young polio victim she appeared on their telethon. Nor does she know that Morris' tears as he talked to her were inspired not by her plight but by his knowledge that a dead waitress was on the sofa in their hotel suite. Who killed the waitress, and why? It's a classic locked room mystery; all the relevant doors were locked from the inside, and so either man could have done it. But what if neither did? One imagines Ellery Queen rubbing his hands and getting down to work. The attempts of Karen O'Connor to get Collins to talk are complicated by his own secrecy, financial need, lust, and general depravity. From his hillside mansion in Los Angeles, he lives in lonely isolation, happy to come and go as he pleases. His former partner Morris maintains an off - Roger Ebert
 
Variety 6 of 10
"Where the Truth Lies" is an unconvincing film a clef about the sordid truth behind the breakup of a celebrated Hollywood performing team. Atom Egoyan's most mainstream and genre-oriented picture in his 20-year career applies a thick noir lacquer to a jumbled, time-jumping tale of a young female journalist prying the facts out of the aging entertainers and their cronies. Lacking strong critical backing, this ungainly picture faces a dicey commercial future. Principally by changing the straight man in the act to a Brit, Egoyan has tried to reduce the similarities between the film, TV and nightclub stars here and a certain Italian-American crooner and his madcap Jewish partner that served as the obvious inspirations for Rupert Holmes' 2004 novel. Be that as it may, it's the allure of seeing the curtain lifted on the "real" inside story of a famous act that gives pic its initial interest. Ironically, the ultimate revelation of the denouement is actually more plausible than the way in which most of what comes before is presented. On perhaps the most fundamental level, longtime arthouse fave Egoyan lacks the sort of innate pizzazz to sock over a sense of '50s showbiz at its slickly entertaining apex. The audience is asked to accept the talent and popularity of the outrageous Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and his more elegant partner Vince Collins (Colin Firth) by inference, as there's only a half-hearted attempt to fully recreate the ambiance and impact of a club act of the era (something quite skillfully pulled off by Kevin Spacey in "Beyond the Sea," for all the criticism it received). Propelling the narrative is the intent of author Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman) to finally deliver the unknown reason why Lanny and Vince abruptly split up at the height of their careers 15 years before. Rupture dates to the day when the naked body of a beautiful young woman was found in the bathtub of the entertainers' hotel suite, although the death was attributed to an overdose and no culpability was ever attached to the showmen. Brief snippets of the pair's heyday reveals Vince to possess a scary violent side (he beats an audience member senseless over an anti-Semitic remark) and Lanny to be a full-time leech for whom efficient valet Reuben (David Hayman) procures girls from audiences, not to mention hot and cold-running room service cuties. As Lanny later confesses to Karen in one of the script's better lines, "Having to be a nice guy is the toughest thing in the world if you're not." Skipping back and forth through time in a manner more strenuous than edifying, pic attempts to assemble an intriguing portrait of intrepid reporter Karen, but while her relationship with her subjects begins by seeming complex, it ends up as murky, harsh and unsympathetic. A lifelong fan for reasons that are partly personal, Karen brandishes her million-dollar book contract like a search warrant, as if it entitled her free access to every last shred of personal history, although Vince h - Todd McCarthy