L.I.E.
Michael Cuesta
Paul Franklin Dano, Billy Kay, Brian Cox, Bruce Altman
Club.
The Long Island Expressway - the L.I.E. of the title - is infamously a Stateside death-trap. The film borrowing its name is a hit.
There is nothing which really joins the title to the story, except the implication that life is full of untruths.
Lone child (Dano) lives with wealthy, and dodgy, father (Altman) and conducts criminal acts with friend (Kay). They come into the orbit of an Irish-American (the always-excellent Cox) who forms a stand-in father-son relationship with the boy.
It is a debut film from writer-director Cuesta and it is the sort of film which needs your full attention. It weaves and shifts and explores curious avenues … and it is the sort of film which is made for the dedicated buff.
4/5.