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Four friends meet at a country house, but find the truth isn’t what it seems.

Chloe Sevigny, Jena Malone, and Leelee Sobieski star in Lying, a film about a group of young women who meet at a friend’s (Sevigny) country home for the weekend. We’re not exactly sure at first how the girls know one another or how long they’ve been friends. They seem to be at arm’s length from Sevigny, their host, as they check out her new place. We find out Sevigny’s parents died and that they left her a substantial amount of money. Then her brother shows up and we wonder if he’s going to get involved with one of the girls.

From the title, it’s obvious the relationship between the women is not based in truth, but we don’t learn enough about these women to understand who they are, what their motives are (with the lies or really, any part of their lives), or the reason behind the lying. The film had a great idea behind it about how well you really know your friends, but when it comes down to it, we aren’t even sure how close these four actually are to one another. The biggest lie itself doesn’t really even make sense—is it for attention? It’s not clear.

The film consists of a lot of shots of Sevigny staring either out the window or, for a change of pace, staring outside at the trees. The other girls seem to awkwardly walk around her house and try to make themselves at home when they don’t seem the slightest bit comfortable. In one scene, one of the women comes out of her guest room in the morning and Sevigny offers her coffee and asks if she wants to go for a walk. She declines and Sevigny asks what she’ll do while she’s gone and the reply is, “Sleep some more.” Huh? I didn’t get the pointless dialogue that didn’t move you further along in the story, nor did I get the endless footage of Leelee Sobieski running and waving flags in her own backyard. The only thing I got from that scene was nauseous as the cameraperson ran after her causing you to witness every bump and jostle in stomach churning glory.

I had high hopes for this film since it had such a great cast and premise and the setting was beautiful, but the movie failed to make me care about the characters or to understand the point of the lies. The house and nature setting was beautiful and Leelee Sobieski has never looked as pretty, but unless you want to watch a film with people making awkward small talk, I’d pass on this one.

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