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.
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sergepesic27 April 2008
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FStriptych18 February 2006If you like longing glances into the misty distance, unmotivated yet psychotic incest, and daft police work, you'll love this waste of time and film.
The casting director clearly liked a specific "look" of female. As a result, I spent the first half of the movie just trying to keep the female characters straight. Beautiful women are not enough to save this flimsiest of scripts, however.
I feel cheated. I could've been playing solitaire. It would've been equally fulfilling. Clearly, I do not recommend this movie. I was hoping for so much more from a largely watchable cast. -
johnniedoo10 October 2010The 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.
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b_clerkin14 June 2006Is it a war movie? Is it film noir? Is it cheap titillation? A deep exploration of complex and controversial relationships? This film cannot decide what it is and so, as another person noted, must require several viewings in order to make sense. Sadly, it is just not compelling enough to warrant multiple viewings - unlike other films that ARE rich with complex themes and artistic vision.
The actors valiantly try to overcome the morass that is the script - but were probably as annoyed as the rest of us at the myriad loose threads that never tie up.
Adrian Dunbar portrays the frustration of someone tempted and confused by things around him - he must be the avatar for the viewer. Stephen Dorff offers another workmanlike portrayal of your friendly neighborhood rebel without a clue. Gabrielle Anwar, who is usually a fine actor, is stuck with a character whose neuroses become tedious and irritating by the end of the film. Joanna Lumley escapes caricature by a false eyelash and looks luminous in the period fashions. The rest of the cast are superfluous at best and annoying distractions at worst, doing nothing to advance the story. They and the plot lines that involve them do not even qualify as decent red herrings.
The cinematography is lovely - very atmospheric and evocative of the era - as are the costumes and staging.
Unfortunately, Dewolf's grasp at Art exceeded his reach and no amount of plot devices can make this murky movie anything more than a mild diversion. Perhaps the fault lies with the editing - which would explain the subplots that disappear and other senseless oddities. A tighter script, a focused plot, and less cheap titillation would have permitted this talented cast to fully engage the viewer in a riveting mystery flick. -
dbdumonteil3 June 2006....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. -
mbs4 February 2018Truly lousy screenplay sinks this one. Gabrielle Anwar, Adrian Dunbar, and Stephen Dorff all try hard to make this work (Dorff even attempts an English accent!) but the plot as it unfolds doesn't quite work. There seems like there was some scenes left out that might have made some of the explanation of why the characters do the things they do (or why they feel as attached to one another as they do)
The murder of an old friend brings a detective played by Dunbar into contact with this posh well to do aristocratic family including a pair of siblings played by Dorff and Anwar...and they're both engaged to other people, and havn't seen one another in five or so years, but they both harbor a dangerous attachment to one another.
There's a backstory here that includes a third sibling (A twin for Dorff) who died under mysterious circumstances---it seems like it was an accidental death (or was it???) at the hands of an errant crossbow shot by Dorff as a child and in their grief he and his sister apparently clung to each other cementing a you know primal relationship that can't be surpassed no matter how apart they grow or something? I'm not entirely sure--but i think that's it.
Trivia Alert BTW---A very young Kiera Knightly plays the younger version of Anwar in the flashback scenes of her as a girl.
Anyways the movie makes a hash out of all of this while also trying to bring in a bunch of other suspects who could plausibly have killed the detective's old friend--but we all know its gonna come down to either Dorff or Anwar because otherwise there'd be no movie!!!!
There's a plotline involving the detective getting overly involved with Anwar, much to the horror of the woman he shares custody of a child with although i'm never sure if they're married or divorced or just around each other an awful lot. (The detective's relaionship with his daughter is also touched upon, but again its all tangential to the mystery he's trying to unravel.)
Anyways this could've been first rate--but its a mess. Its a complete hash of a muder mystery and the ending is bad....really, really, really bad. But its well filmed!!!! The movie looks really, really good---visually its a good looking movie, but its all for nothing because you will not care one way or the other about what's actually happening onscreen. -
Stephen Dorff, being characteristically creepy in a suspicious way. A forceful, severe matriarch. Prominent sound effects and a taut, somber original score emphasizing strings. Dark, moody lighting, and crisp cinematography that seems dulled to accentuate shadow. Gabrielle Anwar, directed to at once be beautiful and alluring and also appear helpless and frightened. Whispers, soft voices; dynamic camerawork; cuts to disparate scenes of no readily apparent connection, and without immediate explanation of any, to highlight a sense of detachment, isolation, and foreboding. These are elements that are employed in 'Innocent lies' to inculcate an air of tension and suspense. It's useful for the film to do so because while there's definite mystery about the title - sufficiently strong that even without knowing it beforehand, I recognized a feeling that it was adapted from a book, and one by Agatha Christie at that - its construction doesn't necessarily supply an atmosphere of tension and suspense on its own. In fact, the described added flourishes and the writing and direction at large frankly seem to oppose one another. This movie has problems.
Even the youngest members of the cast generally perform admirably with the material they are given, serving up acting with strong nuance where they can. From a technical standpoint this is well made, and I admire the contributions of the crew behind the scenes. The production design is fetching, and the costume design, and hair and makeup work. These are no substitute, however, for writing and direction that nonetheless makes every scene, line of dialogue, and too much of every performance feel disconnected and less than earnestly meaningful. We rather seem to get a portrait in miniature, one piece at a time, of how director Patrick Dewolf and his collaborators imagines it all should look in a mystery, thriller, drama, and/or film noir - only, the detachment and isolation that is added into the picture kind of extends to each constituent part. 'Innocent lies' is a theoretical patchwork quilt that is very carefully arranged, save for that the stitches between distinct patches are hopelessly loose, and still so thick and heavy that they overshadow what they're supposed to be holding together.
It's so very odd. All the components are here for what should be a rich, engaging, compelling movie, including subtle airs of psychological drama. I can tell how much effort went into it. By some weird set of circumstances I can't fully describe, however, the whole is notably less than the sum of its parts. There's what a movie could or should be, and then there's what it is or the impression it makes - unwieldy, unconvincing, perhaps even contrived. I don't absolutely dislike 'Innocent lies,' and even with nasty themes on the edges including incest and fascism (content warning, folks) it's a narrative that has significant potential. That potential simply isn't borne out.
I expect and hope that there are viewers who watch this and get more out of it than I do. I just think it's too messy and underwhelming to particularly inspire. There are worse films you could watch, but with so many better ones out there, too, there's no overwhelming reason why 'Innocent lies' deserves your time over another. -
I believe Towards Zero to be one of Christie's best and when I read there was an adaptation that her usually quite tolerant estate had declined any involvement with (an extremely rare occurrence to the chagrin of some Christie purists), I went out to search for it.
The setting is both beautiful and poignant. An Art Deco Villa on a clifftop in 1938 France, undercurrents of the coming war rippling even through the lives of the well-off family at the centre of the story.
British detective Adrian Dunbar, along with his small daughter, visits to bury his old friend, a fellow cop, who apparently and very suddenly has committed suicide. It appears said cop came to investigate the death of a young member of the aptly named Graves family many years ago and never left. What his relationship with the Graves' exactly entailed we never find out (the matriarch insists they had an affair, but her word is as good as anyone else's in this movie, which is no good at all). I guess it would count as a spoiler if there was anything to spoil, that we also never find out what happened to him.
Two things are quite clear from the start. The slimy Oxford student son Jeremy is the most likely suspect and his relationship with his sister is not sisterly in the least. Again, no surprises will reveal themselves on either account.
The hard boiled detective naturally falls immediately under the spell of the beautiful daughter Celia and risks his career to help her escape - from what exactly, not even she herself seems to know. Numerous other storylines are woven (and mostly dropped without any resolution). Various females are upset with the detective, but since they won't tell him why, the film also doesn't care any longer. Motives of anyone are foggy at best and often change from scene to scene. Some sequences are almost Lynchian in their absurdity and their lack of any connection to the plot, but feel much more accidental. The most consistent part is the camera following around young Celia to expose her body from every angle possible.
The ending scene wakes memories rather more of Dial M for Murder than Towards Zero, but I doubt either would like to be associated with this film. In fact, despite some effort, I could find no traces of the intricate plot Christie had woven for Towards Zero. No perfect alibi, no sinister end goal, no double bluff. Instead we get to see Gabrille Anwar's breasts under a variety of semi-translucent fabrics. I guess that counts for something. -
PredragReviews13 June 2016This 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. -
Kar-22 August 1998Very good movie even though a bit complicated to follow when seen for the first time. It is one of those movies you need to see at least twice to fully appreciate it. The principal actors, first of all Gabrielle Anwar, and Stephen Dorff, are outstanding. Noteworthy is also Patrick Blossier´= s excellent photography.
Having said that I still think with this highly imaginative and original story at his hands Patrick Dewulf could have done more, simply by concentrating on the main characters. There are too many subplots there that are rather superfluous in that they do not contribute to the main story which is intense enough and need not be pepped up.
But still: An excellent movie! I highly recommend it. -
smokehill retrievers21 October 2002After expecting the usual ho-hum, self-indulgent little trifle that usually springs forth whenever too many French people are allowed on the set, I was pleased to find a very fast-paced, compelling little drama that probably bombed at the box office because of too little nudity and not enough car chases to keep the 20-something set amused.
The numerous subplots do require a bit of concentration, so you can't chatter on the phone and still expect to keep it all straight, but it's well worth the effort. This film is a bit dark, but not depressing, and is well worth the rental cost if you can't find it on cable. It's much better than 95% of the crud they usually inflict upon us. -
semper_tenera9 August 2011I 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.
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catholiccsi19 March 2011One easily underestimates this lovely film. Reading other reviews clearly reveals how easily a viewer misses the essence of this work. The narrative and style remind me very much of "Vertigo", another often misunderstood work. What most works is the subtle script by director Patrick Dewolf and Kerry Crabbe. Substance and style as in the famous Hitchcock classic define one reality.
I am not familiar with most of the cast, but they excel in this work. Casting is on target. The women are as beautiful as any would ever want to see in a romantic film. The visual beauty of the film never distracts from the complexity of the narrative and one's intrigue as the narrative unfolds. The location, of course, is famous, one exploited in many other great films. I do not want to give away any of the story because every moment is important. Highly recommended.