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White Lie Movie Review

White Lie is a 2019 Canadian drama film directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas and starring Kacey Rohl in the main role. It’s such an intense, interesting viewing.

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“I won’t lie, I promise.

I won’t be sick anymore“

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A young girl fakes having cancer so that she can receive money and attention from everybody, but she finds it difficult to maintain her lie. The movie is very intriguing in its plot and quite original while it also possesses that biographical quality to it. It’s not a biopic because it’s fictional, but it seems very much real due to the immense realism and very complex handling of this subject matter.

While the movie definitely could have dealt more with the other characters and how they reacted and handled the protagonist’s problems, the main character herself is excellent and the thorough viewpoint on her makes the movie quite personal and layered in her character and performance.

Yes, Kacey Rohl is truly remarkable as Katie Arneson. This is one of the most underrated performances of this year. She entirely sold all of her emotional scenes and her character’s complicated psychology. Her arc is tremendous and it’s a shame that the other characters did not get the same treatment, though the scenes with her girlfriend are uniformly strong and her tumultuous relationship with her father is played for thrills so successfully.

White Lie is a drama about a very needy girl in need of help, but it’s also undoubtedly a thriller in its own right as those elements were quite prominent throughout the film’s very concise runtime. There are many scenes here that are very intense and perfectly accompanied by a very eerie, even at times disturbing score.

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The cinematography and the direction are also pretty good while the dialogue is exceptional. The pacing is great as the movie never lags and actually plays out like this incredibly engaging thriller drama with a lot of nuance and complexity to all of the situations that it explores. The role of the Internet, especially social media, in this deception is well touched upon also. The movie premiered at 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and hopefully it will garner more audiences when it gets to streaming platforms soon.

White Lie is a thrilling drama about a girl faking cancer to gain money and attention. Following the repercussions from her deception was very intense and the film is quite complicated and nuanced in the character’s portrayal with Kacey Rohl being excellent in the main role. It’s limited in scope, but ultimately quite personal and very engaging in its concise approach at storytelling.

My Rating – 4.5