Falling, Driving, and Landing on That Lonesome Highway: Film Review of LIE

The title of Michael Cuesta's film LIE stands for the Long Island Expressway, but could just as easily stand for Loss is Everywhere. The film focuses a searing lens on loss, adolescent male development, and the complex tensions between providing for and exploitation of another person. The central character, Howie Blitzer, is a 15-year-old boy whose mother was killed on the Long Island Expressway. Seemingly in search of her, he regularly visits the highway and balances precariously on a bridge railing. His balancing also evokes the possibility that he will fall and, in so doing, join her.

Throughout the film Howie is on the verge of falling. He is falling in love with his best friend, Gary, a psychopathic teenager who seems to feel little conflict about stealing from the wealthy Long Island suburbanites he envies. Howie is also falling in love with “Big John,” a 55-year-old pedophile who befriends and seduces Howie. Howie is continuing his free-fall from parental safety that was interrupted by his mother's death and his father's neglect and preoccupation with his own illegal business dealings.