Little White Lies

Similar to a French Big Chill
Since I have an all-region DVD player, I was able to enjoy this exquisite movie about a group of friends who decide to take a previously planned vacation after one of them (played by Academy Award winner, Jean Dujardin) gets seriously injured in an accident. This character-driven movie deals with lies we tell ourselves, lies we tell others to keep face, and the consequences, positive or negative, for sometimes telling the truth. At the heart of it is the acceptance of friends for who they are, with their human frailties exposed. The ending, like the coming together of a complex tapestry, is extremely powerful and emotionally moving. There's not a false note in the fine ensemble cast. I sincerely hope that a Region 1 version will be released in the near future for North American consumption.

`The one thing friends can't escape is a few home truths.'
Guillaume Canet creates films (Tell No One, Whatever You Say, J'peux pas dormir..., Je taim) that though they are about love, loss and life, they probe more deeply into the human condition than the glossy entertaining surface can conceal. In the end all of his films demand that the viewer connects to his concept of the flow of life and death and those aspects of living that make a difference. Les petits mouchoirs AKA Little White Lies magnifies these attributes. The story is so conversationally written that for a while it is difficult to pull together where the film is going, but by the end of the film the audience is so choked by the discoveries revealed that tears and a stunned afterburn are inevitable.

Every year, Max Cantara (Fran