Where The Truth Lies

Synopsis: Karen O'Connor tells the story about two distinct but related periods in her life. In 1972, she is an up-and-coming Los Angeles based journalist who has been given the lucrative assignment of convincing once successful comic Vince Collins, who is at the tail end of his career, to allow her to ghost write his memoirs. Most specifically, she has the task from her publishers of discovering the reason behind two issues in Vince's life from 1957: why he and his former on-stage partner Lanny Morris, who is still active and well known within the entertainment business, broke up their professional partnership shortly after they hosted a successful thirty-nine hour telethon for polio research in Miami, there not having been any indication of problems between the two before that; and how did the dead body of Maureen O'Flaherty end up in the water filled bathtub in Vince and Lanny's New Jersey hotel suite, the opening of that New Jersey hotel owned by mobster Sally Sanmarco which was Lanny and Vi
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Director(s): Atom Egoyan
  2 wins & 10 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.5
Metacritic:
47
R
Year:
2005
107 min
271 Views


Live, until they drop dead...

... from the beautiful

Carlou Theater...

... in the heart of sunny

Miami Beach, Florida...

... it's the Veterans Day

Polio Telethon!

And now, please

welcome your hosts...

... the beautiful, the talented,

Lanny Morris...

... and Vince Collins!

Do you realize

we have to present ourselves...

...in front of these lovely

people for the next three days?

Hello, lovely people

for the next three days.

- Look at you. You're a disgrace.

- What?

Look, your hair's a mess, your shoes

aren't shined, your shirt's not pressed.

- Look at your tie. It's not even straight.

- Look at yours. It doesn't even clip on.

Now...

...I'm upset.

You know what

happens when I get upset.

No, no, no. Please.

Please don't hurt me, Vince.

I've had a terrible day already.

All sorts of bad things have happened.

I don't wanna be hurt again.

- You've been hurt already, have you?

- Been hurt real bad.

And what happened,

pray tell?

- Want me to pray or want me to tell?

- I think you better pray.

- I saw this stranger

- I don't know whether you're...

...singing or speaking.

- Leave my pad

- One thing I do know...

- And I said, "Baby...

- ... what explanation do you have?"

- There's always a woman involved.

And she said:

- Next time?

- Next time

And I said, "There will be

No next time"

That's what you said last time,

Lanny, and the time before that.

You have to make sure there's no first

time, then there can't be a next time.

Or a last time.

- That was the last time for me

- Let's hope so, Lanny.

Lanny Morris,

ladies and gentlemen.

My manager sent me over

some of your work.

It's funny how you're

really in them a lot.

Whenever I read these

interviews where the writer says:

"This is how I felt the morning

I woke up to meet the pope"...

..."how I felt when the pope greeted

me, how he reminded me...

...so much of my friend Mike"...

...I always think,

"Who the f*** is Mike?"

So who are you?

I was a young journalist...

... with a few awards...

... a couple of cover stories...

... and a desperate need

to prove myself.

If you look through my work,

you'll see I try to present...

...a balanced view of my subjects.

I leave the conclusions

to the reader.

I'm not sure we like balance.

Or leaving

the conclusions to the reader.

I'm used to being publicized,

not analyzed.

It would be your words.

We'd publish it as a transcript

My questions, your answers.

If you say it, I can use it.

If you don't, I can't.

And they're gonna pay me

a million for this?

An excerpt will be published

in a magazine as a way...

...of amortizing the investment

they'll be making in the book.

They're looking for some...

...provocative stories

for the first issue.

Any thoughts on what these

provocative stories might be about?

The breakup.

Why Lanny and you split.

And the girl.

Maureen.

What happened

to Maureen O'Flaherty.

No one had ever been able

to pin Lanny Morris...

... or Vince Collins

to the girl's death.

All that was clear...

... was that Maureen was

found dead in their hotel suite.

It was unthinkable to me

that Lanny and Vince...

... could have had

anything to do with it.

They were my heroes.

"The reason I consider

myself to be a miracle girl...

...is because

I had the good fortune...

...to meet Lanny and Vince

when I was sick.

Their love of life

is what gave me hope...

...and it's hope

that gives us the power to live."

Thank you, Lanny.

Thank you, Vince.

Come on, let's hear it for her.

Denise handled publicity

for the polio foundation.

And it was her idea to plug

the girl's story on the telethon.

The day before, it was my idea to plug

Denise at the Miami Versailles Hotel.

Don't stop! Don't stop!

Don't stop!

You can tell a lot about a woman

by the way she acts...

... when you're having sex

and room service comes in.

Some girls will sit up

and light a cigarette...

... like there's nothing funny

in the world about her being naked.

"It's obvious we were

in the process of screwing...

... so why not let

a stranger into the room?"

Come on in.

Then there's the kind that will

pull the sheets up...

... and act like they're asleep.

Where would you like it, sir?

Sweetheart, wherever you'd like it.

Then, of course, there's

the ones who scrunch real flat...

... thinking that the bed

will look empty.

With Denise, it was kind of hard

to tell which way she'd go.

Can I have your autograph,

Mr. Morris?

Sure.

Should I make it out to Maureen?

I mean, your autograph on the bill.

Okay.

I mean, I'd love

to have your autograph.

And maybe a few minutes

of your time.

I'm a huge fan and...

...well, I was thinking about...

...writing an article on you

for my campus paper.

I'm the editor.

Any interview requests

go through me, honey.

You know, it's just a college paper.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

Thank you, Maureen.

I say goodbye to Maureen,

knowing I'd see her again...

... close the door and

then turn to look at Denise...

... thinking, "I know this girl from every

college town we have ever played. "

They're called career girls.

The absolute easiest lays...

... in this great nation of ours.

Since you're reading this,

you'd be interested to know...

... that my favorite catches

were the intellectuals.

They'd be the ones in the straight

black dresses, severe black hair.

Your basic neurotic,

eyeglasses, cool jazz, liberal...

..."I'll f*** any black guy as

part of my personal apology...

... for racism in America" type.

Anyhow, on this particular night,

we're in a club in New Jersey...

... it's the '50s, and I'm mingling

with the crowd.

Now, when I say "mingling,"

what I mean is...

... I was scouting

for who I would sleep with.

Didn't matter if the girls

came with dates.

That was Reuben's job.

Reuben is my valet.

I never figured out how he

helped them get rid of their dates...

... but they were always gone

by the second show.

Reuben could clean up

any situation.

Excuse me, miss.

May I say that I think...

...you have the most beautiful eyes

I have ever seen.

Notice I say, "I think you've got the

most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

I haven't seen them yet.

I've been staring at your cans.

Now, Lanny.

- I can't believe he just said that.

- That is completely unacceptable.

Madam, I apologize.

I apologize, ladies and gentlemen...

...for my friend. You cannot

speak that way to a stranger.

Look, her husband's not offended.

- He's not?

- No, her husband's not offended.

Her husband's not here.

This lucky guy is her boyfriend.

And even he's not offended,

and do you know why?

Well, I can certainly hazard a guess.

What the hell is that? For chrissake,

Vince, this is America.

We don't say, "hazard a guess."

We say "yes" or we say "no."

Well, I say "no" to you, Morris.

Excuse me?

Could you repeat that?

I don't think

the entire audience heard you.

Go back to where

you came from, bastard!

I get hecklers all the time,

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Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan, CC is a Canadian director, writer, producer and former actor. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica, a film set primarily in and around the fictional Exotica strip club. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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