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"Truth" Hurts with NC-17
You can handle the Truth...even if you're under 17.
At least that's what the Motion Picture Association of America believes about the upcoming ThinkFilms release Where the Truth Lies.
Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Atom Egoyan and starring Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and Alison Lohman, the film focuses on a 1950s-era comedy duo whose career is derailed after they engage in a ménage à trois with a girl who turns up dead the next day.
Producers on Tuesday announced they would appeal the Motion Picture Association of America's decision to slap the movie with an NC-17, a virtual kiss of death at the box office. Many exhibitors refuse to screen NC-17 movies and many newspapers won't run ads for such films.
"Where the Truth Lies is a sophisticated and intelligently provocative film. The NC-17 rating will unfairly limit people's access to it because of the number of theaters in America which will not play an NC-17 rated film," says ThinkFilm chairman Robert Lantos in a statement. "The film has not encountered this kind of restrictive rating anywhere else in the free world. Only in America will many be deprived of access to it."
Based on the novel of the same name by Rupert Holmes, Where the Truth Lies received its world premiere in competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, garnering much critical praise. The film is scheduled to make its North American debut at next month's Toronto Film Festival.
The film traces the rise and fall of comics Lanny Morris (Bacon) and Vince Collins (Firth), whose debauched encounter with a girl (Rachel Blanchard) ends in tragedy, when she is found naked and dead in their hotel suite.
The rating apparently came down to the three-way sex scene, which the MPAA's ratings board (known as the Classification and Ratings Administration) deems too explicit for teenage eyes.
But the filmmakers say the titillating encounter involving Bacon, Firth and Blanchard is far from smutty and deserves saving from the cutting-room floor, because not only is it artfully choreographed by Egoyan, but more importantly, it anchors the storyline.
"This scene is done using a single sustained master shot in order to allow the actors the most conducive environment for intimacy and intensity, and in order to best communicate what happens in the film's pivotal scene," notes Lantos. "It cannot be cut without compromising the central scene of the narrative and thus rendering the mystery of the film incomprehensible."
"It remains more than a bit absurd to me that this scene would garner an R if shot exactly the same but from just torso up, but becomes an NC-17 because the master shot reveals full bodies."
An MPAA rep says the group has not issued a final certification yet, but that will likely happen within the week, possibly even tomorrow. Egoyan, who trimmed several scenes from the film but refuses to cut the three-way, is expected to speak at the appeal should Where the Truth Lies still receive an NC-17.
Where the Truth Lies is currently targeted for a platform release starting in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 14 before expanding nationwide one week later.
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