"Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" seems to be the popular phrase referring to Atom Egoyan's new, critically panned film.  Where the Truth Lies unfolds in a way similar to both The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica, where events from the past are woven into the context of the present, ultimately revealing a complex set of relations between several characters.  This structure worked brilliantly in those earlier films, creating dense psychological portraits by exploring the depth of the characters grief and regret as well as a sense of mystery that empowered the thematic buildup.  While Where the Truth Lies is missing the emotional payoff and the material is a bit thinner and trashier, it is not the disaster some critics have implied.  Sans a painfully inept performance from the recently petrified Allison Lohman, the acting brilliantly expresses the multiple layers of the characters, each struggling to come to terms with the truth in their own ways as we're left on the outside struggling with our own preconceptions and prejudices about the characters.

The story concerns a fictional comedy duo, Lanny and Vince, and the young girl who ends up dead in their hotel bathtub.  Red herrings abound, Egoyan toys with their loose morality, deftly developing the seedy underworld where these outwardly friendly and funny men exist.  Lohman plays the reporter trying to get to the bottom of things, yet much like her acting, she finds herself way out of her league.  Time and denial have buried the secret so deep that only by sifting through years of lies and breaking down the the men's thick-skinned persona's is she able to get to the core of the mystery.  It's a more purely entertaining film than usual for Egoyan, but his ability to create layered plots and multi-textural experiences than are unwound throughout the course of the film remains unmatched by his peers.  If at the center of Where the Truth Lies, we find no real depth in its character exposition or development of themes, it is only because we have come to expect this from Egoyan.  If you can accept the film for what it is, you'll find a delightfully seedy mystery who's joy is in the journey and after all, a sub-par effort for this director is worth more than most other films you'll find in the multiplexes.