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MPAA: Kids Can't Handle "Truth"
Two's company but three's definitely a crowd.
That's the verdict of the Motion Picture Association of America, whose Ratings and Classifications Board has upheld the dreaded NC-17 rating it slapped on Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan's new art-house drama, Where the Truth Lies, because it featured a ménage à trois.
The movie, which stars Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, Rachel Blanchard and Alison Lohman, makes its North American debut next week at the Toronto Film Festival.
It follows a popular 1950s-era comedy duo (Bacon and Firth) whose career is derailed after they engage in a night of debauchery, including a threesome with a beautiful woman who turns up dead the next day in their hotel suite.
After reviewing Truth last month, the MPAA's Ratings and Classifications Board gave the picture an NC-17, which means no one under the age of 17 is allowed admission, citing "some explicit sexuality" involving Bacon, Firth and Blanchard.
The decision prompted protests from independent distributor ThinkFilm, which claimed the three-way was artfully choreographed by Egoyan and is central to the movie's mystery. The company also noted that the rating severely hampered the flick's commercial prospects, since many exhibitors refuse to book NC-17-rated fare.
ThinkFilm appealed and on Wednesday the filmmaker and Blanchard went before a 10-member panel in Los Angeles to make their case. Egoyan argued that he filmed the ménage in a sustained master shot and that trimming it would be nearly impossible without losing the scene's intent, which anchors the storyline.
An NC-17 is an "unwarranted response given the story it's telling and the way it needed to be told," Egoyan told the Associated Press. "We couldn't trim any more without destroying the heart of the movie."
Blanchard added that she had no problem shedding her inhibitions, since the scene was vital to the integrity of the drama being played out.
"The film is basically about the power of celebrity and the abuse of that power," she told the wire service. "It sort of expands on how abusing that power sexually has consequences. It's a redeeming film and it has a positive message."
Unfortunately their arguments failed to make the cut. The appeals board voted 6-4 to overturn the NC-17 rating and give it an R, falling one vote short of the required two-thirds majority.
Despite the setback, Where the Truth Lies will still be released uncut. Because ThinkFilm is not an MPAA signatory like the major studios, it has the option of issuing the movie unrated, and, according to chairman Robert Santos, that's exactly what the company intends to do.
That's the same strategy the distributor recently employed with its potty-mouthed documentary The Aristocrats, in which a who's-who of comedians riff on the same dirty joke. Nonetheless, ThinkFilm faces an uphill battle at the box office, since many exhibitors outside major cities typically shy away from screening unrated films, and media outlets don't like to advertise such fare.
Another problem possibly hindering profitability: ThinkFilms is contractually required to deliver an R-rated version to Columbia TriStar Home Video. No word yet whether the film will need to be chopped for its DVD release.
Where The Truth Lies is set to open in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 14 before expanding one week later to whatever U.S. theaters agree to book it.
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