Skin Deep

She bangs: Leila (Lauren Lee Smith) in Clement Virgo's film, Lie with Me. Courtesy Think Film Company.

If you haven’t heard of Lie With Me, you must have spent the last half-year in media exile. From its much-talked-about airings on Canada’s festival circuit to the distributor’s aggressive postering campaign, the latest from Canadian director Clement Virgo (Rude, Love Come Down) arrives amid a torrent of buzz. Buzz predicated almost exclusively on the film’s graphic sex.

Virgo doesn’t pussyfoot. Lie With Me begins with a sexual salvo that rivals — maybe even surpasses — David Cronenberg’s scandalous opening gambit in Crash. (You remember: three successive sex scenes.) The credits recede to reveal Leila (Lauren Lee Smith) on her couch, masturbating to porn. Cut to a hazy club. Leila is grinding away on a dance floor with various lascivious males when she locks eyes with David (Eric Balfour), there with his girlfriend, Victoria (Polly Shannon). All of a sudden, Leila grabs one of her sweaty hangers-on and proceeds outside; David collars Victoria and does the same. Before we know it, Leila and David have orchestrated (telepathically?) an elaborate indulgence in which she fellates her partner while David watches from his car — while being fellated by Victoria.

This opening sequence not only demonstrates Lie With Me’s sexual bluntness but portends just how few words are going to be expended to convey the burgeoning passion between Leila and David. Virgo is deliberately stingy with the details of their lives. (Leila appears to work in a child-welfare office; David seems to do little more than tend to his invalid father.) Their dialogue (if we can call it that) is curt, impassive, largely frivolous; they choose to communicate their feelings physically. We see predatory sex, punitive sex, exploratory sex, selfish sex, redemptive sex, exhibitionistic sex — and, yes, even mutually pleasurable sex.

Lovers' embrace: Leila (Lauren Lee Smith) and David (Eric Balfour). Courtesy Think Film Company.

That last one seems quite unusual, given the propensity of Canadian directors to characterize sex as either deviant (Crash, Kissed) or
guilt-ridden (Exotica),
but never enjoyable. Rarely has movie sex looked this good. The cinematography is marvellously gauzy. It also helps that the two leads are fetching and seem to have zero body fat.

While Balfour (best known as Claire’s nogoodnik boyfriend on Six Feet Under) displays a disarming vulnerability, it’s Smith who owns the film. The young actor, whose most high-profile work up until now was on the cult sci-fi series Mutant X, really gives herself over to this role. It’s not an easy one. Not only does she spend most of the film naked or in the process of getting undressed, but her character is utterly self-seeking. Leila is a sex addict who tries to keep physical desire separate from emotion. She falls for David, then retreats when he proves too complex and needy. She goes to clubs alone, submitting herself to the lusty depredations of strange men. The ensuing sex is occasionally satisfying, but more often undignified, if not utterly repulsive.

As a sexual prowler, Smith’s performance is arresting; as a human being, it comes up short. When not engaged in rumpy-pumpy, Leila seems drugged, incapable of producing a full sentence or even standing up straight. The French have a way of making this sort of sexual ennui seem quirky; I’m reminded of the novels of Anaïs Nin or some of Catherine Deneuve’s more deadpan performances. That may have been the intent here, but Smith’s performance shows no evidence of humour or whimsy. This is where the film loses its credibility. While the sex is so doggedly realistic — I daresay real — everything that brackets it feels unnatural.

Smith isn’t helped by the script, which was written by Virgo’s partner, Tamara Faith Berger (based on her novel of the same name). Lie With Me contains a great deal of voiceover narration, meant to give the film a philosophical mooring. At least, it would if the commentary was the least bit elegiac or insightful. Instead, Leila’s pronouncements tumble out like dead poetry. Here’s a sample: “People f--- each other for one night, one year, twenty years. It doesn’t matter; it all hurts.” What really hurts is a shoddy script.

At the risk of sounding flippant, Lie With Me would have been much more enigmatic and absorbing had it been conceived as a non-speaking film. As it is, the film has all the emotional resonance of a one-night stand.

Lie With Me opens Nov. 25 in Toronto and Vancouver.

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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