The controversial opening film at this year’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, L.I.E. depicts the complex relationship between a troubled adolescent boy and a predatory older man. 15 year old Howie’s mother has died on the Long Island Expressway near their home, and his father is too busy with his new girlfriend and mounting business worries to pay much attention to his son’s sadness and alienation. During a burglary, Howie (Paul Franklin Dano) comes under the scrutiny of Big John (brilliantly played by Scottish actor Brian Cox), a neighbourhood guy with a weakness for young boys, and an uncomfortable but tender relationship develops between them. L.I.E. sets the neediness and barely understood desires of vulnerable young boys against those of the older man, unravelling issues of power, abusiveness and sexual safety in a startling study of loneliness and the complexity of male sexuality.
Director: Michael Cuesta. U.S.A., 2001. Colour. Dolby digital stereo. 97 mins.