WHITE LIE: A Good, Not Great Melodrama

The con artist archetype is heightened to a new level of depravity in the Canadian produced drama White Lie. Wide-eyed college student, Katie, is a promising young dancer at her college. She has an amazing girlfriend named Jennifer, the lead in a dance showcase, a chance at a scholarship, and a slew of social media followers since being diagnosed with cancer. Or so everyone thinks. Using her fake illness as a method to make money for school, Katie, played with sociopathic finesse by Kacey Rohl, desperately clings to the ruse even when her tale of woe inevitably unravels.

Co-written and directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas, White Lie tensely meanders through its plot with jarring music beats and drab backdrops which do well to leave the audience uneasy but somehow not fully engaged.

The Set-Up

The film starts out with Katie preparing to face the unsuspecting marks at her college in a darkly effective head-shaving sequence. What follows is a ‘day in the life’ montage of her taking selfies with fellow students, promoting a cancer charity page, and practicing the routine for her show. Rohl does well to flip the switch between conniving and convincing when Katie is forced into sticky situations mounting from her thread of deceit. Using her pixie-like appearance to garner sympathy at every turn, one might surmise that occasionally even Katie buys into her own hype.

Soon we are made aware of the inner workings of Katie’s scheme. With the help of local drug dealer Owen, played by Connor Jessup of Locke And Key, Katie spends what little cash she has to score prescription pill bottles to keep the scam going. All seems to be moving well until she is forced to come up with faked medical records in order to earn her scholarship. Another piece to the long game Owen helps her perpetrate by setting her up with a young doctor looking for some quick cash to help his ailing mother.

The premise is solidly written if not for a few overly long scenes which have the melodramatic veneer of a Lifetime Original Movie. With a little more spit and polish White Lie might have had a more engaging tone over the one on screen.

Even Shallow Plotholes Can Still Trip You Up

Admittedly, like with any scam, trying to keep up the charade comes with obvious roadblocks which surmount quickly for Katie when push comes to shove. She spends more money on keeping up the ruse than she has brought in from her uncompleted fundraiser leading her to scam even her affluent girlfriend, played by the wonderful Amber Anderson.

Then there is the issue of her father. Desperate to score some quick cash in order to get the falsified medical records, Katie goes to see her estranged dad and one of the best actors in the film, Martin Donovan, who denies her the money and mentions how she has tried to pull this scheme before, though he never really gets into the logistics of what happened. After begging her to give up the ghost, she refuses, leaving him with the only option he has, to call her out on her social media page. From here on out, Katie’s descent into deeper trouble causes her to play the victim and screw over just about everyone who has ever been even the least bit nice to her. Leading to a troubling and anticlimactic non-ending.

On a side note, and I have not been to college in a while, let alone a Canadian university, but wouldn’t the school already have her medical records in order to even attend classes. I could be completely off base here, though hiding a fake cancer diagnosis would seem to be a much greater feat than portrayed in the film.

And Now What?

Admittedly, the plot itself is a solid concept which tries hard to crank up the tension by constantly adding more and more to Katie’s pile of bullshit. The problem is, it feels too much like a mundane ‘day in the life’ rather than the intriguing caper it could have evolved into. All of the parts are there and Lewis and Thomas try hard to maneuver the audience through Katie’s manipulative world, only causing her to look almost sympathetic in her pursuit to get ahead. A trait of the character that could have been fleshed out fully, giving the role a bit more weight. The desperation of Katie is seen in every shot, though the drab tone never quite represents the severity and deplorableness of what she is doing to her family and friends.

I would like to say White Lie is a powerful look into the psyche of a fledgling con artist who is in over her head, and there are plenty of moments of just that, but the film is simply too dull and sleepy in its attempt to keep the attention of the audience. Thinking back to all the times Katie could have lost complete control of the situation only to weasel her way out with weak lies and poor planning justly solidifies the issues I had watching White Lie.

Suffice it to say, this is not a terrible film and could have held strong to its core plot if it had a few more twists and turns. Instead, White Lie comes off as an underbaked drama with a paper-thin conclusion.

Nail-biting drama comes in many forms and the Film Inquiry Community would like some suggestions on what we should watch. Leave your recommendations and get the conversation started.

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