Film’s threesome proves troublesome
By Ben Widdicombe, Jo Piazza and Chris Rovzar
New York Daily News
August 14, 2005
Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and Rachel Blanchard have a wild menage
a trois in their new film, “Where the Truth Lies.” But how much of
their three-way will you get to see?
Director Atom Egoyan and ThinkFilm execs are wrestling with the
MPAA ratings board over whether the film should get an NC-17 or the
preferable R.
Word is the ratings sheriffs have gotten hung up on four scenes in
the movie, based on Rupert Holmes’ novel about a journalist trying to
find the truth behind the breakup of a famed comedy team years before.
A lesbian sex scene – featuring a woman dressed as Alice in Wonderland
– was less troubling than Blanchard’s trifecta romp with Bacon and
Firth, who play the comic duo loosely based on Jerry Lewis and Dean
Martin. The next morning, Blanchard is found dead in the hotel room.
The “Sweet Hereafter” director writes in SLM magazine that the
MPAA is concerned with “the actual number of thrusts seen.” Before
shooting his actors, he recalls, “I resorted to playing with dolls,
trying to figure out angles and configurations.” But in the end,
he couldn’t disguise the sexual mechanics.
“I needed these scenes to feel lurid and unbridled,” says the
Oscar-nominee and four-time Cannes Film Festival prize winner.
Having promised producer Robert Lantos an R, Egoyan has continued
whacking away at the offending scenes.
But one insider tells us, “The mystery of the girl’s death hinges
on that scene. If he cuts any more, the audience won’t know what
happened.”
ThinkFilm is due to get a verdict on the latest edit this week. If the
NC-17 sticks, the company could appeal, or it could release “Where
the Truth Lies” without a rating, as it did with its raunchy comedy
“The Aristocrats.”
It’s safe to say the movie is a departure for Blanchard, that sweet
girl from TV’s “7th Heaven.” She admits her boyfriend “cringed” when
he saw her triple-header – partly because “he would suffer endless
taunts of ‘One degree of Kevin Bacon!'”
PHOTO CAPTION: Kevin Bacon (l.), Rachel Blanchard and Colin Firth
figure in a steamy scene director Atom Egoyan is fighting to retain in
‘Where the Truth Lies.’
From: Baghdasarian