Movies - L.I.E.

	Movies - L.I.E.

L.I.E. is an independent film released in 2001 about the relationship between a teenage boy and a pedophile known as "Big John." It was directed by Michael Cuesta and starred Paul Franklin Dano as the boy and Brian Cox as Big John. Pederasty is merely suggested, not shown, and there is only one sex scene between an adult couple. Still, the extremely controversial portrayal of "Big John" as human (if not sympathetic) earned the film the NC-17 rating, usually considered the "kiss of death" for a movie.

The title is an acronym for the Long Island Expressway.

Plot summary

Howie Blitzer (Dano), still reeling from the death of his mother in a car accident on the titular highway, finds his only solace in the company of his best friend Gary (Billy Kay), a juvenile delinquent and amateur prostitute who he has a kind of crush on. One night, they break into the house of "Big John" Harrigan (Cox), a closeted pedophile and Gary's main "customer." They steal a valuable WWII vintage pistol John kept from his military service.

John is angered by the loss of his heirloom and retaliates by threatening to hurt Gary unless Howie returns the gun or comes to work for him. At first, John tries to molest Howie by showing him pornography, but Howie, startled and confused, rejects his advances. The two begin a tenuous, non-sexual friendship in which John becomes a kind of father figure to the boy. John's compulsions, however, combined with Howie's burgeoning homosexuality, the imprisonment of Howie's distant father (Bruce Altman), and the fact that Gary has run away, create an uneasy atmosphere in which sexual interaction is a definite possibility.

Near the end, vulnerable because he believes his father has abandoned him, Howie stays the night at John's house expecting John to sleep with him. But when John informs Howie his father didn't abandon him, but is instead in jail, Howie breaks down and cries in relief. In his compassion for Howie, John fixes him a bed and leaves him to sleep by himself, much to Howie's dismay. The next morning, after taking Howie to see his father in jail, John is shot and killed by a former (adult) lover who resents the attention John gives to Howie. At the end, everyone Howie has ever loved has left him (his mother and John are dead, Gary has run away, and his father is in prison), and in the final scene he is contemplating the expressway, vowing he won't let it get him too.

Despite negligible box office earnings, the film received much critical acclaim, especially for Cox's performance.

Trivia

Portions of this movie were filmed at Harborfields High School, located in Greenlawn, New York, not far from the Long Island Expressway. (However, the film does not actually state that the characters attend this school.)

Partway through the film, Howie recites an excerpt of Walt Whitman's Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. Whitman is believed by most scholars to have been a closeted homosexual.

After receiving an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, L.I.E. was released without a rating (because American film ratings are optional), an unusual step for an already rated film. Both a tamer Rated R version and the original uncut film are available on DVD.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for L.I.E. ]

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