White Lie (film)

White Lie is a 2019 Canadian drama film written and directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas. The film stars Kacey Rohl as Katie Arneson, a university student who fakes a cancer diagnosis for the attention and financial gain, but gets caught up in having to maintain her lie.

White Lie
Film poster
Directed byYonah Lewis
Calvin Thomas
Produced byKaren Harnisch
Yonah Lewis
Calvin Thomas
Katie Bird Nolan
Lindsay Tapscott
Written byYonah Lewis
Calvin Thomas
StarringKacey Rohl
Amber Anderson
Martin Donovan
Connor Jessup
Music byLev Lewis
CinematographyChristopher Lew
Edited byLev Lewis
Production
company
Film Forge Productions
Lisa Pictures
Babe Nation Films
Distributed bylevelFILM (Canada)
Release date
  • September 7, 2019 (2019-09-07) (TIFF)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

It premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival,[1] and had its international premiere at the 24th Busan International Film Festival.[2]

Plot

Katie Arneson has been faking her cancer diagnosis for some time now. She pops placebos, shaves her head and starves herself to appear more sickly to those watching. And there are a lot of people watching. Katie is a small-time campus celebrity who uses her fraudulent diagnosis for both emotional and financial gain, raising money through crowdfunding campaigns, while collecting friends, supporters and an unsuspecting girlfriend, Jennifer Ellis.

Katie learns a university bursary she has been counting on is in jeopardy unless she can provide proof of her illness in the form of medical records by the end of the week. She enlists the help of a medical resident, Dr. Jabari Jordan, to forge the documents, but struggles to produce the $2,000 he demands without raising suspicion. Reduced to desperate measures, Katie contacts her estranged father in search of the required money. He sees through her façade and refuses to help, pleading with his daughter to come clean publicly. With nowhere else to turn, Katie asks Jennifer, who agrees without hesitation, but is unable to withdraw it in full from the bank on such short notice. Presented with only a portion of the amount he was promised, Jordan withholds the forged documents Katie urgently needs until she can pay the remainder.

The following morning, when Katie returns to the clinic with the outstanding cash in hand, Jordan is nowhere to be found. Ever persistent and resourceful, Katie deceives his supervisor into handing over the medical records. After successfully submitting the falsified documents to the university, Katie breathes a sigh of relief; until she receives a notification that her father has written a tell-all post on Facebook, exposing her crime.

In a frantic effort to contest the accusations, Katie descends into a spiral of misguided decisions that further entrench her deceit. With support from her community quickly fading, and determined to salvage her relationship with Jennifer, Katie overlooks an opportunity to come clean, and instead continues to betray and manipulate her devoted partner. Convinced yet again of Katie's lie, Jennifer stands by her girlfriend's side and helps her map out a plan to regain the public's confidence.

Cast

Production

Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas began developing a film about a woman faking cancer for personal gain in 2012. "For the first time, we had a story based upon a character and not the other way around. We always envisioned it as a fast-paced procedural rather than a drama," they explained in an interview with Playback.[3] Lewis and Thomas spent several years considering possible narrative structures for the film, including the "rise and fall" of standard biopics. The first draft was written in 2015 and compressed the story into a five-day timeline. "We had to find a balance of not telling too much and telling just enough that you have enough insight into what happened over the past couple months of her life," said Thomas.[4] Films from the Romanian New Wave, including 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), influenced the plotting.[5]

The duo worked again with producer Karen Harnisch, who had recently brought the Canadian independent film Sleeping Giant (2015) to the Cannes Film Festival, and was able to help them secure a larger budget. “It was an aspiration for all of us to create a really polished film that graduated us from the mumblecore-y microbudget world,” Harnisch told The Globe and Mail.[6]

The film was shot in Toronto and Hamilton under the working title Baldy.[7] Principal photography began on November 14, 2018 and was completed one month later on December 14.[8]

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 21 reviews, and an average rating of 8.40/10.[9] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[10]

The Globe and Mail's Carly Lewis awarded the film four out of four stars and described it as "an incredible feat of showcasing the complicated scramble that is being alive." Adding that White Lie "unfurls to become an unexpected empathy inquest."[11] NOW Magazine's Norman Wilner called the film "a character piece that plays like a thriller."[12]

Calum Marsh praised the film's direction in a piece for Maclean's on the best Canadian films at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, writing "The directors calibrate the tension perfectly, and without moralizing indict an age in which, thanks to the internet and social media, the line between public and private lives has blurred, and we are all trying our best to keep up appearances."[13] The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Dalton echoed the sentiment, stating, "Driven by nuanced, persuasive performances and shot with an urgent, jittery tension, White Lie is a compelling close-up character study of a recklessly needy anti-heroine caught in an impossible dilemma of her own making."[14]

Awards

In December 2019, the film was named to TIFF's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list.[15]

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) and nominee(s) Result Ref(s)
Vancouver Film Critics Circle January 6, 2020 Best Screenplay for a Canadian Film Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas Won [16][17]
Best Actress in a Canadian Film Kacey Rohl Nominated
Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian Film Amber Anderson Won
Miami Film Festival March 23, 2020 Rene Rodriguez Critics Award Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas Won [18]
Canadian Screen Awards May 28, 2020 Best Motion Picture Karen Harnisch, Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas, Katie Bird Nolan, Lindsay Tapscott Nominated [19]
Best Director Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas Nominated
Best Actress Kacey Rohl Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas Nominated
Philadelphia Film Festival November 3, 2020 Honorable Mention for Performance Kacey Rohl Won [20]

References
  1. Hertz, Barry (July 31, 2019). "TIFF 2019: Toronto festival's Canadian lineup a mix of familiar faces, exciting rookies and a starring role for David Cronenberg". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  2. "White Lie Program Note". Busan International Film Festival. Retrieved September 23, 2019.
  3. Malyk, Lauren (February 26, 2020). "CSA best film race: How the young pretenders became the contenders". Playback. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  4. Benardello, Karen (September 18, 2019). "Toronto International Film Festival 2019 Interview: Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas Talk White Lie". Shock Ya!. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  5. "How a "White Lie" Can Get You Ahead". First Weekend Club. March 9, 2020. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  6. Lewis, Carly (September 6, 2019). "TIFF 2019: White Lie producer Karen Harnisch on channelling her emotions into film". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  7. Malyk, Lauren (November 20, 2018). "Spice It Up duo bring cautionary cancer tale to camera". Playback. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  8. IMDb Filming & Production
  9. "White Lie (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  10. "White Lie Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved July 23, 2020.
  11. Lewis, Carly (September 7, 2019). "The Globe's guide to TIFF 2019 movies". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  12. Wilner, Norman (August 27, 2019). "TIFF review: White Lie". NOW Magazine. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  13. Marsh, Callum (September 13, 2019). "6 of the best Canadian films at the Toronto International Film Festival". Maclean's. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  14. Dalton, Stephen (September 9, 2019). "'White Lie': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  15. Wilner, Norman (December 11, 2019). "TIFF announces Canada's top 10 films of 2019". NOW Magazine. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  16. Mack, Adrian (December 13, 2019). "Marriage Story dominates Vancouver Film Critics Circle noms". The Georgia Straight. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  17. "Vancouver film critics award 'The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open'". Tri-City News. January 7, 2020. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  18. Feinberg, Scott (March 23, 2020). "Miami Film Fest Unveils Winners Through Virtual Judging Process". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  19. "Canadian Academy Announces 2020 Nominations". Northern Stars. February 18, 2020. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  20. "Philadelphia Film Festival winners". The Philadelphia Tribune. March 23, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
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