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Judith A. Yanof's nuanced and tender reconsideration of the 2001 film, L.I.E., illuminates the churning mix beneath the coming of age story of 16-year-old Howie. The title of the film refers to the Long Island Expressway, the 71 miles of roadway that runs from the borough of Queens in New York City to Riverhead, which is a town situated at the point where the fish-shaped island reaches its tail. Arriving at a crossroads is an implicit theme in the film as it portrays a boy's troubled adolescence, unfolding in the tragic shadow of his mother's untimely death.
At first glance, the film ‘L.I.E.’ is a meditation on loss. Through her exploration of the destabilizing effects of the recent loss of his mother on Howie, Yanof communicates an understanding that our psychological theories attempt to bring to such a situation. In her analysis, she does not neglect the visceral, irrational despair such experiences produce in children and the surviving spouse. The film's devastating scenes of impulsivity and its attendant consequences suggest the degree to which the mother's death results in a loss of meaning. Yanof's suggestion of the expressway as representing a transitional space disturbed by Howie's reckless attempts at navigating his own transition into manhood provides a framework for making sense of scenes that are alternately as gut-wrenching as they are cringe-inducing. Left living with a Lothario type of father who overtly sexualizes his interactions with his son, Howie is, in fact, an orphan. He is stranded in a no-man's land between boyhood and manhood without a compass, let alone a reliable guide.
The film shows a series of men who each fail Howie, as we are left with a sinking awareness that these are men who have been failed as well. In a more classical understanding of gender identity formation, a father is stereotypically portrayed as one who exemplifies for his son what it means to be a man. For boys growing up gay, however, the father also offers a first experien