Little White Lies Review

While it may lack the preposterous pace of your favourite sitcom, the characters will still hook and draw you in.

Claiming the dog ate your homework is a lie. So is telling Harrison Ford that Indiana Jones 5 is a good idea. They’re little by name and harmless by nature (as long as Ford doesn’t insist on doing his own stunts).

But pretending your girlfriend hasn’t dumped you? Or that your best friend didn’t confess to having homoerotic feelings towards you? Or convincing yourself that it’s okay to go to the seaside for the weekend while your friend lies terminally ill in hospital? Now those little white lies sound like several big black ones.

These are just a handful of untruths spun by a group of bourgeois friends in Tell No One director/actor Guillaume Canet’s latest film. But a lie is a lie, and whether it’s white, black or a pale shade of grey, the truth will out in the end; or so Canet’s film suggests. For this group of friends it is the unspoken guilt each feels following their friend’s motorbike accident (revealed in a bold Touch of Evil-style opening long shot) that serves as a catalyst for personal confessions and breakdowns.

Audiences on this side of the Channel may be reminded of The Big Chill, a 1983 American dramedy with a similar coming-to-terms-with- tragedy storyline. But where Lawrence Kasdan’s film humorously exposed the cracks between a group of thirtysomething baby boomers, Little White Lies deals with the modern-day fickleness of their thirtysomething kids.

On the surface, these twenty-first-century troubles may seem as trite as having to figure out the etiquette of the flirty text message or finding time to join a yoga class, but Canet’s film reads between the lies. Beneath the vanity and the gay jokes lurks the age-old fear of growing old, as well as that outdated fear of sexuality.

Above all, however, is the unenviable fear of losing a friend who is the same age as you. And it is this sense of impending tragedy that Canet skilfully holds over each of the characters’ heads as they hide behind their self-made veil of lies.

That his film achieves a tasteful balance of doleful humour can be attributed to laudably authentic acting. These friends and lovers are credible enough to ease the 154-minute run time, even though we could do with a couple more Chandler-esque one-liners, or the quirkiness of a Phoebe to ease the way. Still, Little White Lies is sure to touch a nerve. In fact, by the end, a little white handkerchief might come in useful.

As for the elephant in the room? Canet’s film might just be the second best thing pulling off that title.