Filmoption International The Good Lie Toronto and Winnipeg Theatrical Premieres May 2013 GAT PR Press Summary
Interviews completed Tuesday April 23
Live TV Outlet: Global TV Interviewed: Thomas Dekker
Online Outlet: Scene Creek Interviewed: Thomas Dekker
Online Outlet: Moviefone Interviewed: Thomas Dekker and Shawn Linden Pre-‐recorded TV Outlet: eTalk Daily Interviewed: Thomas Dekker
Online, podcast Outlet: ADDICTED Interviewed: Thomas Dekker and Shawn Linden
TV and radio Outlet: 680 News/CTV Interviewed: Thomas Dekker
Global TV – National Morning Show Interviewed by hosts Liza Fromer, Antony Robart, Kris Reyes and Rosey Edeh http://globalnews.ca/news/503656/thomas-‐dekker-‐drawn-‐to-‐dark-‐tale-‐in-‐the-‐good-‐lie/
Interviewed actor Thomas Dekker on April 23 – No archive available online
680 News Video: Thomas Dekker, ‘The Good Lie’ Interviewed by Gloria Martin
http://www.680news.com/2013/05/01/680news-‐video-‐thomas-‐dekker-‐the-‐good-‐lie/
This interview also appeared on the following outlets:
Thomas Dekker, Shawn Linden talk ‘The Good Lie’, Campfire Tales Rick Mele http://news.moviefone.ca/2013/05/07/the-‐good-‐lie-‐thomas-‐dekker-‐shawn-‐linden-‐interview/
According to writer/director Shawn Linden, part of the inspiration for his new film "The Good Lie" came from childhood, when he and his friends would swap increasingly outlandish stories around a campfire, each trying to outdo the last. And Linden clearly put all that practice to good use in "The Good Lie," because we're guessing his friends (and just about anybody else, for that matter) would be hard-‐pressed to top the central tale in the filmmaker's sophomore effort. Starring Thomas Dekker as Cullen Francis, "The Good Lie" is framed by a group of friends and a similar campfire tradition. But Cullen's story, which is slowly revealed in between these vignettes, is guaranteed to be far more twisted than anything his friends can come up with -‐-‐ because it revolves around his recent discovery that the man who raised him (Matt Craven) isn't his real dad, a revelation that led Cullen on a quest to track down his biological father, the man who raped his mother 21 years earlier. Part campfire tale, part emotional drama and part thriller, "The Good Lie" resists easy classification. Moviefone Canada spoke to Dekker and Linden about those formative campfire stories, including one that didn't make the cut, getting on the same page, and what to expect from a movie that defies expectations. Moviefone: Cullen is a pretty demanding role for an actor. When did you know you'd found him in Thomas? Shawn Linden: There wasn't really an audition, because I was looking for a personality that matched the character. So just talking to him personally reinforced what I'd thought before, that he's capable of doing this, of portraying this person who's the product of a really positive force and a really negative one.
Thomas Dekker: I guess that's me. [Laughs] Does that sound accurate? Dekker: I mean, any role that's a good one, that I want to do, my whole interest is in duality. So I never want to play something that's just good or bad. Because I think that's just more realistic of how people are. So this movie was perfect, because it's somebody who was grappling between rage and anger and frustration and sensitivity and sadness. Linden: Physically too. Like, look at his face. He looks like an angel and a devil had a one-‐night stand. Dekker: [Laughs] There is that shot in the mirror where I look pretty f**king evil in this. Linden: Yeah, your face has the capacity to look almost childlike and innocent and ... the opposite of childlike and innocent. Dekker: [Laughs] Well, thank you, Shawn. I take that as a compliment.
Was that quality at the top of your casting list for the role? Linden: Absolutely. It was the number one thing that it needed. And it needed to go beyond just appearances. Dekker: That was a really funny thing though: before anybody'd seen the film, and before I would tell them anything about the plot, I'd be like, "It's about me and my father." And they'd be like, "Who plays your father?" And they'd always go, "Matt Craven? Really? He plays your father? They thought you guys look alike?" I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, that's the whole thing, you gotta wait for it." You've mentioned that you and Matt lived next to one another during shooting. Was that intentional? Linden: Oh yeah, for sure. We wanted them to be housed together. And by the end of it, they did pretty much get something close to a father/son relationship. Dekker: We bonded very quickly. Linden: Alcohol, it just makes things gel. Since a story like this could have ended up coming across melodramatic, how did you make sure you avoided that? Linden: We were trying to keep the pace of a thriller or a mystery as opposed to a drama, and because of the melodramatic elements, particularly in the beginning of the story, we were really trying to be careful to keep the clip up, and to keep things moving.
It's almost like there's two different movies going on here, with the campfire scenes and the thriller elements. Linden: I think the campfire stories add a nice counterbalance to the soberness of the main story. We were allowed to be completely unrestrained morally and artistically with these stories. And the more we did that, the better. To me, it was like salt and pepper on the rest of the story. To have gotten just a straight-‐on story of a young man who goes off to find... Dekker: It would've been too much. Linden: Yeah, it would have been a bit of a downer. It would've been more of a "Canadian" movie. Dekker: You know, it's funny, I had a little screening party for it back home in LA, and half the people, when it gets to the last campfire story were so excited it was back, because that was their favourite part of the movie, and then the other half yelled at the TV, "No!" Because they wanted to see what was going to happen with the main storyline. Linden: [Laughs] Those are both perfect responses. Dekker: Yeah, it was great. But I love the stories, and that last one is actually my favourite. What about you, Shawn, do you have a favorite of the campfire stories? Linden: I actually don't. Dekker: There was a great one that we never even shot, right? Linden: Yeah. I guess that one's my least favourite, the one that we didn't get to shoot. But I go through phases. Like, we've had this conversation before, and everybody else who'd been working on the film, we'd have to name our favourite. And it would literally go like, "My favourite's the vegetarian, no ... no, wait, it's the dog one. No, no, no, it's the nun one. No, no, no, no, for sure, it's the lumberjack one. Yeah, but the veterinarian one was pretty good ..." So I think that's good that there was no favourite, it just means all four of them wound up working out well. What was the one that you ended up having to cut? Linden: It was a story about an exploding fox. About two boys who jam a stick of dynamite up a fox's ass and let it go in a field, and it just takes a turn around and runs right back after them. So they're running from this flaming fox. And they jump in their pickup truck, and the fox runs under it, and it explodes. It blows them both up. Or it blows one of them up. Dekker: That would've been a little pricey, that one. [Laughs] Linden: And I'm pretty sure that's the only one that was based on a true story. I think that actually sort of, might've happened at some point in time in the southern United States. What inspired you to come up with the rest of the story? Linden: It was inspired by my own family, and by my own friends. My friends and I grew up going to the woods and trying to impress each other with how funny we can be, and how gross we can be. But the main story is about my family. My mother is adopted, so my grandparents are not my biological grandparents. But they were people who I grew up idolizing and fearing. They were the most impressive people that I've ever known, and the fact that they're not related to me by blood means zero. They are a piece of me as much as anybody by blood could be. And they define me as much as anybody else could. So it was kind of playing with that idea. It gave rise to this story, and I was discussing the premise of it to my grandmother when she was on her deathbed. We had a big, long talk about the story and she'd said, "Well, when we were picking your mother out, that was quite a common occurrence, that they'd find that there's rape babies out there." And I'd thought that it was really rare, but she was like, yeah, it happened all the time back when my mother was younger. And you know, we got into talking about the story and developing it, and the next day she died, and suddenly everything that she had said, it got that shimmery resonance. That was the drive that got the script made. The movie takes some pretty unexpected turns. Thomas, what was your first impression when you got the script? Linden: Br-‐rilliant! Dekker: [Laughs] I loved the narrative structure. When it got me was when the first campfire story happened. Because I thought up until that point that I'd really figured out what this movie was gonna be like. And it just threw me, like, "What the f**k?" And then when it got these horror/thriller elements near the end, I was just like, "This is so original and interesting." So, that's why I think we spoke for three hours when we first did, because I was asking questions and saying what I thought about it. And everything I was saying, you said it was pretty accurate. So I figured I knew what the movie was going to be.
Interview: Director Shawn Linden and Thomas Dekker discuss ‘ The Good Lie’ Anthony Marcusa http://scenecreek.com/interviews/director-‐shawn-‐linden-‐and-‐thomas-‐dekker-‐discuss-‐the-‐good-‐lie/
It was a role conceived for him from the start, a character that requires the actor to be possessive of a polarizing duality. One half of him is sympathetic, endearing, and earnest – he’s a young man with questions about family and life, looking to be a good son, friend, and person. The other half is something else entirely, as an aimless vengeance takes over, losing control and heading with full steam to no place in particular. He ignores those that seek to help while getting in harm’s way. Thomas Dekker assumes the compelling role of Cullen Francis, a young man who, upon the sudden death of his loving mother, learns from a posthumous video that he is the product of a rape. In one moment Cullen is a seemingly average youth, arguing with his parents and living a social existence. In the next he is someone else, as if the dramatic realization awakens the darker side of him, the side of him that was contributed by an unknown assailant.
Dekker, a 25-‐year-‐old actor who has worked in film and television in the United States and Canada, notably in shows such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The Secret Circle, was in the mind of writer and director Shawn Linden at the beginning. “I was very curious, and so when I read it, I thought it was a very good fit,” explained Dekker while in Toronto. “I was drawn to it because I hadn’t read anything quite like it, it was surprise after surprise. The journey the character goes on is like cake for the actor, there are so many different emotional turns.” The journey Dekker speaks of is a lengthy one, and one without a destination. Cullen wants to meet his biological father, traveling across a lonely night in search of answers, and some sort of resolution. He is hardheaded, yet caring, angry yet confused, brave yet naïve. “[Cullen] is a product of a really good person and a really bad person, an angel and a devil,” says Linden. “I wanted someone who can personify both of those things at once. [Thomas] is a brooding person with a warm face, and can have these two different elements that are always at work.” Dekker laughs as Linden offers this description, and there is a tacit understanding that its Dekker’s acting ability that allows him to possess both a darkness and a lightness. At certain moments, though, Dekker seems to have become a thoughtful, agonizing introvert just like his character. “There was a time you look shattered walking around with headphones on,” says Linden to Dekker of his behavior on set during a shooting of a campfire scene. It’s a narrative that runs parallel to Cullen’s journey, as he and a group of friends spend a night in the woods telling tall tales. As Cullen searches, his stepfather follows, though always a step behind. The relationship between the two is key, despite not spending a great deal of time on screen together. Linden, Dekker, and Matt Craven, who plays Cullen’s father Richard, worked together to shape the attitude and personality of Cullen, fleshing out a realistic character so that Dekker could inhabit him completely, acting and reacting to the world around him. “Watching the tape of his mother is a perfect example of really just reacting to something,” explains Dekker. “I was allowed in one shot to go from one emotion to the other, and if you’re open to what you’re actually experiencing, you don’t have to fabricate too much.” Across a month shooting in both Montreal and Winnipeg, Dekker became Cullen Francis, a conflicted young man no longer a child but not yet an adult. Headstrong and blinded with confusion, rage, and whatever other imaginable emotions go into discovering your father is a rapist, Dekker goes on a powerful quest in this intimate, memorable Canadian film. It hit Dekker too, emotionally, and physically at times. “I felt pretty beat up at the end of it,” he says. “For better or worse, as an actor, you get to experience things you hope you never have to really experience.”
An Interview with Thomas Dekker on The Good Lie Kristal Cooper
http://thetfs.ca/2013/05/01/an-‐interview-‐with-‐thomas-‐dekker-‐on-‐the-‐good-‐lie/
You may recognize Thomas Dekker mostly from his featured roles in TV fan favourites like Heroes, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or The Secret Circle, but he’s slowly but surely making his way in the world of film. One of the big screen credits on his steadilly growing acting resume is in Shawn Linden’s Montreal-‐shot The Good Lie, which opens in Toronto on May 10. In the film he plays Cullen Francis, a young college student who finds out that he was the product of a violent rape. Dekker sat down with Toronto Film Scene to chat about this challenging role. Describe your character in 10 words or less: I don’t know if it will be 10 words but…He’s a young man whose life is completely turned upside down. How did you get involved with the film?
Shawn Linden, the director, had seen me in a couple of different projects and he sent the script to my manager. I read it and then Shawn and I talked on the phone for about 2 1/2 hours and I said I wanted to do it! The next thing you know, I was flying off to Montreal. It was a pretty smooth entrance! What did you like most about your character? The journey that he has to go on is an actor’s dream. You start with this guy in one place – he’s a wealthy suburban kind of cocky kid and then literally, everything is taken from him. I loved the challenge of trying to figure out his transitions and transformations throughout the script so that it wasn’t a one note performance. What’s the one thing you’d most like people to know about the film? That it is really unique and probably unlike anything else they’ve seen. I think that is why the movie is hard to describe easily. It’s horrific, it’s moving, it’s genuine, it’s funny, bizarre. And the narrative structure is unique as it is framed within a bunch of campfire stories. What’s your best memory from shooting the film? All the french food! Hmm..other than Montreal!? I loved the process of working with Shawn and Matt (Matt Craven plays his father). Matt and I lived next door to each other while we were shooting and even though we had very few scenes actually together – he is looking for me in the film – it was a great opportunity for us to bond as father and son. And I got an ipad as a wrap gift so that was probably the best part! (laughs). Who’s your biggest acting inspiration and why? Good question! That’s a tricky one for me to answer because I tend to gravitate toward female performances. I grew up really influenced by River Pheonix. I loved him. I thought he was a very sensitive and open young actor. So I’d definitely say him – and Sigourney Weaver. They are my favourite actors. If you could be in your dream project what would it be? I’d probably say I have dreams of working with certain directors rather than a ‘dream project’. But I’m going to be in every film Shawn ever makes – we discussed this last night. I heard he was going to cast me as the lead in all of them. That’s what he told me and he better not take it back when he’s sober (laughing). I’ve always wanted to work with David Fincher and Michael Haneke. I love most Gus Van Sant projects. I’d really like to work with all of them. What are you working on next? I just finished a pilot for CBS called Backstrom with Rainn Wilson where I’m the male version of the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which was very fun to play. And I have two films coming up, one shooting in New York called Pretenders with Imogen Poots and one called The White City shooting in Tel Aviv, Israel with my costar from Kaboom (Haley Bennett). We are a couple in this one so it’s a slightly different dynamic!
The Good Lie Interview with Thomas Dekker and Shawn Linden Nate Daniels
http://www.weraddicted.com/the-‐good-‐lie-‐interview-‐with-‐thomas-‐dekker-‐and-‐shawn-‐linden/
Please see link for full audio interview.
The Canadian film industry often gets a bad rap for its campy themes, underwhelming deliveries, and play-‐it-‐safe plot lines; director Shawn Linden is about to change all that with his new film The Good Lie. Thomas Dekker stars as Cullen Francis, a “privileged young man whose life is upended by the sudden knowledge that he is the product of rape.” Framed within a series of campfire stories and urban legends, the shocking truth about a terrifying cat-‐and-‐ mouse chase between son, biological father, and stepfather reveals itself as something more bizarre than any campfire fable. I had a chance to chat with Linden and Dekker in Toronto about the new film – opening in Toronto and Winnipeg on May 3 – and many other fun topics on Tuesday, before they continued their hectic press schedule to Montréal. Check it out with the link below.
Movie review: The Good Lie Jay Stone
http://o.canada.com/2013/05/02/movie-‐review-‐the-‐good-‐lie/ Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Being named “Cullen” affects movie characters in dark ways. Edward, in the Twilight series, was an irresistibly brooding immortal whose furrowed brows were a sign of A Project, someone that Bella had an eternity to repair and she’ll probably need it. The Cullen in the Canadian film A Good Lie — Cullen Francis, played by young star Thomas Dekker — has no fangs, but he takes second place to no man when it comes to intense focus. Handsome, troubled, and moody, this Cullen has more important things to do than seek the love of his life: he has a rapist to catch. It’s his father. A Good Lie is a coming-‐of-‐age thriller that winds us up for a disappointing payoff, but for a while, it provides a stylish and disturbing twist on the genre. Cullen is a careless college student who’s called out of class one day to be told his mother Doris (Julie Le Breton) has died in a car accident. Cullen, who was kind of broody before, is devastated, especially when he realizes his last words to her were, “Whatever.”
Six months later, going through some of her effects hidden in a closet, he comes across a video she made when he was born — there she is, 21 years younger and holding Cullen as a baby. And she has a confession to make: she was violently raped, beaten and left for dead, but out of the experience, she became pregnant. Cullen’s biological father isn’t Richard (Matt Craven), the man he’s been calling dad all these years. It’s someone named K. Rose. The revelation tears Cullen apart, in a style in which young men have been torn apart ever since James Dean was faced with a father in an apron in Rebel Without A Cause. “I always wondered why I never looked anything like you,” he tells his father angrily. He abandons his girlfriend and his dad and takes off to find this Rose, last heard of serving 26 years in prison. Richard takes off after him, and their hunt for the truth becomes the plot of this mysterious road movie that gradually becomes less mysterious the closer it gets to its answers. Winnipeg writer-‐director Shawn Linden has a nicely measured touch, and The Good Lie moves swiftly as long as Cullen is on the road. However, as the movie hopscotches through time, it regularly returns to a framing story: Cullen and his buddies have gone on a camping trip where they are all required to tell a revealing fireside story. There are five of them, and Cullen’s — the very story we’re seeing — will come last. That means sitting through four preposterous urban legends that are meant to be spooky, or thrilling, or perhaps just believable, but come across as the sort of things 11-‐year-‐olds might tell if they were overtired. The first one, for instance, is about a nun who gets pregnant even though there are no men around. The solution has something to do with a nearby zucchini patch, and when the young narrator says, “It’s true. I swear it happened,” it makes you fear for the future of the planet. Cullen’s hunt is similarly unlikely, especially when it reaches its unsatisfying conclusion. We keep watching mostly because of Dekker, who has been in TV shows (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and genre films (Michael Bay’s remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street) and looks like he’s on the verge of breaking out. He’s a strong presence in the middle of a stylish movie that fades away just when it should be grabbing us.
The Good Lie: A solid film commits its very own sins of omission Michael Posner
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-‐reviews/the-‐good-‐lie-‐a-‐solid-‐film-‐commits-‐its-‐very-‐own-‐ sins-‐of-‐omission/article11853853/
It won’t be giving the game away to disclose the good lie at the heart of writer/director Shawn Linden’s indie thriller, The Good Lie. Cullen Francis (Thomas Dekker) dashes off to school one morning muttering a dismissive “Whatever” at his caring mother. Too soon, she is dead, killed in a senseless auto accident. Some months later, the young man makes a discovery – an old videotape, recorded when he was an infant, in which his mother discloses that he is not who he thinks he is. He learns he is the product of a brutal assault and rape that his mother barely survived, and about which Cullen was never told. Stunned and angry at the lies he has heard for 21 years,the young man sets off on an impetuous road odyssey to find the jailed rapist who is his biological father. In his
quest, he is anxiously tracked by the man who has been playing that nurturing role, Richard Francis (Matt Craven). An interesting premise and, supported by Dekker, a young actor with enormous screen presence, a well-‐acted film that is almost always engaging. But Linden’s feature comes wrapped with a major distortion – and one important sin of omission of its own. The distortion is an elaborate but ultimately awkward framing device: a summer camping trip taken by Cullen and four male friends to a remote lakefront site. There, in the age-‐old tradition, they attempt to outdo each other with grisly campfire tales of horror. The film thus bounces annoyingly back and forth between the meat – Cullen’s quest to find the source of his paternity, with dad Richard in hot pursuit – and the tepid appetizers: increasingly lurid campfire tales. Showing instead of telling, Linden has filmed these stories separately, but that becomes yet another distraction. There’s method to all of this apparent plot madness, which I won’t divulge. But while the payoff is clever, it comes with too high a cost: the narrative drag it exerts on the larger story. That yarn has its own metronomic quirks. The action lurches between Cullen’s encounters with people who might be able to help him find his biological father; and Richard’s own meetings with the same people, as he searches for his son. The film’s sin of omission is more serious, a dramatic opportunity that could have delivered a genuine climax and huge emotional dividends. Given the rethinks to which virtually all movie scripts are subjected, this plot point must have been considered – a penultimate or final convergence of son and both fathers. Without it, the viewer may feel, as I did, that Linden has chosen the safer, neater route to resolution. Still, there is a lot of fine work on the screen, particularly Dekker’s carefully wrought balance of inchoate anger, youthful bravado and raw fear. The Good Lie demonstrates again the fatal flaw that affects too many Canadian films: it’s the script, stupid.
The Good Lie: Lie crumbles Susan G. Cole
http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=192472
This drama about teenager Cullen’s (Thomas Dekker) quest for his birth father, who raped his mother, has some admirable qualities. Dekker’s excellent as the angry young man willing to take risks in the search for his prey, the dialogue between him and his pals is edgy and real, and writer/director Shawn Linden knows how to create tension. But the story itself builds to a disappointing climax, and the narrative device of having the boys one-‐up each other with scary ghost stories, gorily dramatized, around the campfire before Cullen reveals all (basically nothing) fails. The Good Lie isn’t one of those typically Canuck pics that has a superb cast and nothing else. But decent performances – Matt Craven as Cullen’s dad is also good – a great indie soundtrack and few scenes with crackling conversation can’t rescue a problematic screenplay. Linden has talent. He just hasn’t yet put it all together.
The Good Lie Adam Nayman
http://www.thegridto.com/culture/film/the-‐good-‐lie/
In The Good Lie, a college student discovers that his biological father isn’t the man he’s grown up with, but a convicted rapist—a revelation communicated via a VHS tape left behind by his late mother. The set-‐up is pure exploitation-‐movie, but Shawn Linden’s thriller tries to cover its bases by also introducing notes of gross-‐out horror and shoving the whole thing into an anthology framework. The result is a film that cuts back and forth between Cullen (Thomas Dekker) trying to track down and confront his real dad, and a series of campfire tales spun by his frat-‐boyish pals on a guys-‐only weekend in the woods. The idea is that their crass, nasty spook stories—a man mauled to death by dogs, a woman giving birth to a zucchini plant—pale in comparison to Cullen’s real-‐life psychodrama. It’s an ambitious structure, but the dialogue in these bros-‐will-‐be-‐bros scenes is so pushy and obvious that it makes one wish Linden had just tried to tell Cullen’s story straight. The problem is, there just isn’t much story to tell. Dekker is a fine actor, but the role eventually defeats him—all it calls for is brow-‐furrowed brooding, and it gets boring. Matt Craven is very good as Cullen’s adopted father, Francis, however; he’s the only performer in the movie who appears appropriately haunted by the goings-‐on around him. If The Good Lie had more of this sort of gravity, it might have been a rarity: a genre picture grounded in real emotions. As it is, it’s more like a failed experiment—a mash-‐up that blends all of its elements into a thin, tasteless paste.
Toronto
The Good Lie Serena Whitney
http://exclaim.ca/Reviews/Film/good_lie-‐directed_by_shawn_linden
Typically, when one thinks of the term "Canadian indie," it induces excessive groaning. Although some are executed flawlessly, the majority of them feature prominent Canadian actors starring in either a melodramatic thriller or a quirky comedy that uses a "unique" framing device that merely just amplifies the awkward juxtapositions throughout the entire film. Sadly, The Good Lie falls into this latter category. Writer/director Shawn Linden's Montreal-‐shot drama follows a young, privileged University student named Cullen (Thomas Dekker). Six months after the tragic death of his mother, Cullen's life is further torn apart after he discovers that the man who's been raising him (Matt Craven) isn't his biological father and that he was actually the product of a violent rape his mother barely survived 21 years ago. In the span of 24 hours, Cullen goes down the self-‐destructive path of tracking down the man who raped his mother, only to discover far more than he bargained for in this grim and slightly mediocre film posing as a thriller. While focused on his ambivalence towards mainstream success North of the border, Linden frames the narrative structure of the film within a series of bizarre and Darwin Award-‐worthy campfire tales that are mildly entertaining yet fail to serve the plot or the characters' motivations in the slightest. Like many other Canadian films, The Good Lie suffers from persistently disjointed scenes involving multiple points of views in a convoluted manner. While juxtaposing serious scenes involving Cullen's emotional turmoil with campfire tales involving a horny, pregnant nun giving birth to a zucchini plant, the illogical editing style takes away from the dramatic tension and the suspense the viewer's attracted to in the first place. The Good Lie may have been made with the best of intentions, but due to its thematically awkward transitions, it fails to fully develop character arcs and showcase the emotional nuances the film obviously intended to convey.
Review: The Good Lie
Anthony Marcusa
http://scenecreek.com/cdnfilm/the-‐good-‐lie/ Synopsis: When a young college student’s mother suddenly dies in a car accident, he is shown a video made when he was born. In it, his mother discloses that she was raped, and he is the offspring of her and her assailant. Filled with uncontrolled emotion, he sets out to track down his real father, a journey that puts him through an internal struggle and potential danger.
Who’s in It? Thomas Dekker stars as the conflicted, confused protagonist Cullen Francis. Veteran Canadian actor Matt Craven plays Richard Francis, Cullen’s stepfather. Review: It’s not the story that matters as much as how you tell it. A cleverly-‐crafted script and smart direction, both by Canadian Shawn Linden, propel the captivating and intimate journey of a suddenly tortured young man. Thomas Dekker assumes the role of Cullen Francis, a college student who learns of two pieces of heartbreaking news in successive fashion. His mother is killed in a car accident – the last exchange between the two is a fight – and it is later revealed to Cullen born, that his mother was raped, the attacker sent to prison, and Cullen is their child. Upon this stunning disclosure, he sets off immediately to find his biological father, not knowing where the journey will take him, or what he will do when he gets to the ending. This narrative is paralleled by a different one completely, a story about stories that offers a decidedly absurd contrast. Cullen and a group of his male companions are off on a camping trip, and as he sits contemplative off to the side, each braggart tells a tale taller and more outrageous than the last. It’s a stunning and sudden antithesis to the main story, at least initially, for Cullen is the last to share. While Cullen sets off on a trek across a lonely night, with his earnest stepfather following though seemingly hours behind, prior to each revelation Linden returns us to the campfire, where some bloody, gross, sophomoric, and very-‐ well executed yarns are spun. It’s a diversion, and meant to ground, and in all is masterful storytelling. While Linden is juggling these storylines, Dekker is balancing out an internal polarization. Going to mental places that are hard to imagine, he is a compelling, conflicted screen presence, one part average, well-‐off youth, and another part sinister, unknown evil. He clearly cares about his mother and stepfather, but argues with them as kids are wont to do. He ignores the calls of his father because he doesn’t have any answers. He is headstrong and scared, as if the realization of having a horrible criminal of a father has awakened something evil from within, or at least made him think that it could exist. Each campfire story escalates to more ridiculous heights, but Linden’s main story is rightly restrained and realistic, building in tension but always in control. Dekker too is in control, knowing when to hold back and when to emote. Unfortunately for our main character, Cullen doesn’t know exactly what he wants, or what is going to happen. Should You See It? Yes. It’s not just a great Canadian film, but a great film in any regard. Memorable Quote: “You have a camp story ready?” And so it begins.
The Good Lie Review Andrew Parker
http://dorkshelf.com/tag/shawn-‐linden/ Writer/director Shawn Linden’s The Good Lie is a revenge thriller that should work, but it maddeningly wastes a strong, if somewhat simplified core idea on a thoroughly useless framing device that sinks the whole thing. It’s hard to talk about how thoroughly botched this framing device is without spoiling the film, but there’s almost nothing to spoil. It’s something so useless that not only does it feel trucked in from a completely different film, it makes an already marginally okay film feel padded and ineptly put together. Young adult Cullen Francis (Thomas Dekker) has just lost his mother in a tragic accident. While going through her things after her passing he finds a videotaped message from her taken while he was a baby where she explains he was the result of a horrific rape. Filled with anger and frustration, Cullen sets out to find the man who fathered him and wronged his mother. The man who raised Cullen as his own son (Matt Craven) also conducts his own concurrent investigation. Knowing slightly more than the son he protected for so long, he attempts to stay one step ahead of Cullen to try and keep him from doing anything rash and unforgivable. This part of the movie is fine, if a bit too in love with clichéd characters and dialogue. Dekker isn’t exactly perfectly suited to play someone who needs to be so sad he can be driven to want to kill, but once the film moves past his initial shock and grieving, he’s fine when it comes to playing a badass out for revenge. Even better and the true MVP of the film is Craven who brings an immeasurable amount of dignity to the production. His fatherly character is the most believable thing about the film, especially once the script starts getting actual criminal thugs involved in the plot and things take a turn for the lesser once again. But what really tips this movie into the bad category is that framing device. Cullen is out with four of his buddies sitting around telling campfire stories. These stories have absolutely, positively no bearing on anything. Nothing. They are there to make the film seem like a horror movie when it isn’t. There are stories of cannibalism, pregnant nuns, and someone trying to recreate the “dogs playing poker” painting, and one would think this is all relevant stuff. It isn’t. It attempts to tie it all together at the ending, but it completely contradicts and undermines the entire film around it. It’s a soulless cash grab to try and get distribution (which apparently worked to some extent in Canada, anyway) that pisses away any good will there might have been had toward the film. The film itself is a bad lie. Not a good one.
Wylie Writes The Reviews of Addison Wylie
The Good Lie Addison Wyle
http://wyliewrites.wordpress.com/tag/shawn-‐linden/
Shawn Linden’s The Good Lie is good looking and straightforward with its premise that instantly hooks you. A normal high schooler named Cullen (played by Thomas Dekker) is devastated after being pulled out of class to find out his mother Doris (played by Julie LeBreton) has died in a car accident. He’s even more upset after learning he’s the product of a horrific rape. Furious and upset, Cullen sets out to find his mother’s rapist with revenge and justice on his mind. The film’s good ole’ revenge plot has enough risks and raised stakes to satisfy a moviegoer’s expectations. The emotional and well-‐qualified lead performance by Dekker adds to the engagingness of The Good Lie. Dekker’s Cullen is constantly put in conundrums and exchanges that challenge his integrity while twisting and tugging on his heartstrings. It’s a role where an audience will question whether the actor is over doing it with the contorted facial expressions and the furrowed brows, but we realize the actor is nailing it as he’s being put into these troublesome situations written by Linden. Dekker has a
captivating screen presence and we want to see how our hero gives this villain his well-‐ deserved comeuppance. Sadly, while the film is interesting for the first half, Linden gets carried away with his own noir style and characters that turns The Good Lie into a snake eating its own tail – offering a lot of the same and wringing all it can out of its eager snarling actors. Linden has Cullen searching for people who are key in his search for the evil-‐ doer. When Cullen finds who he’s looking for, they send him off in the right direction to find someone else. While Cullen’s mystery is carrying out, Doris’ husband Richard (played competently by Matt Craven) hunts for Cullen in order to track his son’s footprints – giving Richard his own mystery. Linden’s storytelling method is greatly affecting having his script jump around to different points in the narrative providing lots of clever and cunning reveals that will dazzle any moviegoer. His continuity among the stories that play and the stories that follow that may have taken place before those prior events is pitch perfect. I would love to see this creative writer/director tackle time travel in his developing film career. But, as The Good Lie’s surprises and innovativeness turn into the film’s formulaic routine, it’s hard to stay impressed. More characters give Cullen attitude and after the umpteenth baddie who gives Cullen a stunned snarl after the mention of who he’s looking for, it’s hard to take their roughness seriously as they growl lines out of this Tarantino lite screenplay. Did I mention Cullen is planning on telling his story to friends around a campfire? At the beginning of The Good Lie, we understand that Cullen and his buddies escape to the woods to tell each other urban legends and other off-‐putting stories. These moments with these younger characters are obviously here to break up the tension in this taut storyline, but does it have to be so obvious? As Linden hits pause on his more interesting storyline, the audience is transported back to the campfire to watch these annoying actors (sans Dekker) play obnoxious roles and tell their tale that I’m sure will be used as a monologuing staple in each of their demo reels. They kid around with each other, swear, and remind us that they’re all just a group of hooligans wanting to hang out with the bro’s and drink some brews. But, again, do these brash beats in Linden’s script have to be so broad? Unfortunately for The Good Lie, a pivotal jolt in the lead’s story is anticlimactic and goes against the satisfying nature that hooked us at the beginning – finishing the film on a humdrum note. If only Shawn Linden wasn’t too busy leading audiences on for too long, maybe then he could’ve thought of a striking way to maintain that buzz he established so well during the film’s initial build-‐up leading to a conclusion that snaps like a campfire’s blazing licks.
Rape repercussion tale impressive film Randall King
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-‐and-‐life/entertainment/movies/rape-‐repercussion-‐tale-‐ impressive-‐film-‐206906861.html For some strange reason, Winnipeg filmmakers seem to be the only ones willing to explore a dramatic premise few other filmmakers will touch. Sean Garrity's 2010 drama Zooey and Adam was a drama about a man undone by the fact that his child may have been the biological product of a rape. Winnipegger Shawn Linden's The Good Lie attacks the same scenario from the perspective of the child, now grown. Cullen Francis (Thomas Dekker, who played John Connor in the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is in mourning after the accidental death of his mother (Julie Le Breton) when he learns the truth about his parentage via a VHS tape stashed in her closet. She confesses on camera, with baby Cullen in her arms, that she had been raped and nearly murdered by a man named Rose, who was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for the crime. Cullen is devastated and launches his own investigation into the present whereabouts of his biological father. Meanwhile, Richard (Matt Craven), the man Cullen had called dad, sets off in desperate secondary pursuit of the young man he still considers to be his son. This narrative thread is interwoven with what looks like a completely different movie. Cullen and five of his friends go on a camping trip where, as tradition holds, each is obliged to tell their own campfire tale. The stories are essentially ludicrous. A veterinarian acquires a taste for his own flesh. A pregnant nun is believed to have experienced an immaculate conception until the birth reveals the unlikely source of the pregnancy. A group of Russian lumberjacks go to extreme lengths to prove to one another who's toughest. It is, to say the least, a curious framing device that tends to undercut the seriousness of the primary narrative, instead of merely providing comic relief. But given a minimal budget, Linden has pulled off an impressive second feature film coming after his weird, existential noir thriller Nobody (2007). Campfire tales notwithstanding, The Good Lie offers a pretty compelling story that hooks us in no small part due to solid performances by Dekker and Craven. Mostly shot in Montreal, this is nevertheless a worthy calling card feature for the Winnipeg filmmaker, whose career trajectory promises to move ever upward.
Winnipeg
Locally-‐Made Movie ‘ The Good Lie’ Opening Friday May 9, 2013 07:15 AM in Entertainment • 0 Comments http://www.chrisd.ca/2013/05/09/the-good-lie-winnipeg-film-openingtrailer/#.UcoTXWSDR7M
Another made-‐in-‐Winnipeg movie is hitting the big screen beginning Friday. “The Good Lie” tells the story of Cullen, a young college student who discovers after his mother’s sudden death that he was the product of a vicious rape. Directed by Shawn Linden and starring Thomas Dekker and Matt Craven, Cullen sets out to track down his sinister biological father and learns that the truth can be far more bizarre than anything told around a campfire. The flick opens at the Globe Theatre and the Carlton Cinema in Toronto tomorrow. Other Canadian cities will follow in the coming weeks. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Linden spent four years studying philosophy and film studies at the University of Manitoba, and then eight years working in the art department in the local film and television industry.
THE GOOD LIE #SPOTTED: THOMAS DEKKER IN TORONTO FOR “THE GOOD LIE” http://www.mrwillwong.com/tag/the-‐good-‐lie/ Finally getting a release, The Good Lie is a Canadian-‐produced Thriller from Director/Writer Shawn Linden – not to be confused with the Film starring Corey Stoll and Reese Witherspoon, due later this year. The Film centers around Cullen (Thomas Dekker), whom after his Mother passes on, discovers that his Biological Father is just released from Prison. Upon locating him, he realizes the truth behind his conception is far more bizarre than anticipated. Tonight, handsome 25-‐year-‐old Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, My Sister’s Keeper) gave the Audience at Varsity Cinemas a special treat, dropping by to introduce the Film and partake in a Q&A. Staying for most of the Film, the Actor head-‐out for the occasional Cigarette Break, kindly stopping for Photos with Fans who didn’t have passes for the Screening. Looking sharp in a gray suit and teal shirt, his hair perfectly-‐imperfect, he asked, “You guys aren’t coming to watch the Movie?”, to which he learned that passes weren’t available to the Public. Nonetheless, he was amazingly gracious as we would come to expect from someone Canadian-‐raised! Dekker next can be seen in the Drama Squatters alongside Richard Dreyfuss, Luke Grimes and Gabriella Wilde, the latter who filmed the upcoming Carrie Remake here in Toronto last Summer. He continues his Press Tour tomorrow and appears at Global Television‘s The Morning Show (National Edition)at 9:00 AM EST. Filmoption International releases The Good Lie in Toronto on May 3, 2013.
SHAWN LINDEN'S THE GOOD LIE TO PREMIERE IN WINNIPEG ON MAY 10 http://www.onscreenmanitoba.com/news/read/6128
The Good Lie, directed by OSM member Shawn Linden will premiere in Winnipeg on May 10, 2013 at the Globe Theatre. Directed by Shawn Linden With Thomas Dekker, Matt Craven, Julie Le Breton, Spiro Malandrakis, Kevin Coughlin, Alex Weiner, Jesse Rath Produced by Suki Films Inc & Maudlin Pictures, Distributed by Filmoption International. Mystery /90 minutes / Canada. Titre français du film: Histoire à faire peur Plot outline Framed within a series of strange campfire tales, THE GOOD LIE tells the story of Cullen, a young college student. Upon the sudden death of his mother, he discovers that he is the product of a violent rape, which put his young mother in critical condition, and her attacker -‐ a lifelong criminal named Rose -‐ in prison. Cullen goes to the prison to confront the man, and is shocked to hear that Rose was released the previous year. Cullen resolves to track down his sinister biological father, and learns that the truth can be far more bizarre than anything told around a campfire.
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