A House Built on Lies

_A House Built on Lies_ really is a different kind of thriller than we're used to getting from LMN, because while it seems to be a tawdry murder mystery with a lot twists and turns to the plot, in the end the whole story is really informed by the childhood trauma experienced by Daisy and Louise, and the 'murder' wasn't really a murder. Louise did not go to Chris that night with the intention to kill him, and she only pushed him because he grabbed her, but she did not intend for him to go out the window. But did that moment cause her to snap? Or was it a combination of that and Daisy's health issues that caused her to take over the mothering duties to the point that she was worried something would happen to Daisy and James would end up in the system? Perhaps if Daisy had told Louise sooner that she was the designated guardian, she wouldn't have been so overly protective. There really is a lot of ambiguity to the situation, a lot of 'what ifs' to be considered, but in the end I don't think Louise was intended to be a bad person, she just had a lot of trauma that had never been addressed. Perhaps Emily should have also reached out to her to make amends, but most of her ire had been directed at Daisy so she had to reach out to her first (although she knew the women were inseparable). I like that the story did not end with Daisy accidentally killing Louise -- since they ended their showdown in the room where Chris died, I was sure Louise would somehow end up going through the window in the end. Instead, Daisy could empathize with Louise's pain -- their shared pain -- and embraced her tightly, becoming a comfort even though she was still reeling from the facts surrounding Chris' death and her own drugging. I wish there had been something in the coda of the story to tell us what charges Louise was going to face, and I wonder if Daisy would ever be able to forgive her. I am happy that she found an ally in Zack, and that he didn't hold her accusations of murder against her. Zack was a good guy who just misjudged a situation (but did he really expect that Chris would have the same feelings for him, or was his admission of love just something he felt he needed to get off his chest?). It seemed that Chris may have been able to get past it after getting over the shock of finding out his best friend was in love with him. Maybe. But writers Patrick Ireland and Jessica Romagnoli -- in their first credited feature -- have really done a spectacular job of building and building on the story, and even though it seems like it could have been pretty outlandish as each layer of this onion is peeled back, with almost 'everything but the kitchen sink' story beats, it still makes for a really good, engaging, gripping movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat -- at one point I even thought perhaps Daisy _was_ the killer -- and you never feel that each plot point is done for cheap effect. I look forward to more work from them. Director Andrew Parkes (in his second feature after his impressive work on the slightly silly "Mama's Little Murderer") really gives this a cinematic feel with the lighting and camera work, drawing some impressive performances from the cast as well, never allowing anyone to overplay and give things away, but letting some of them give just enough to make us question them (case in point, Louise, who I only started to feel was a little shady about halfway through the story) ... although having Nurse Tyra be so surly from the get-go was a questionable decision because we had no way of knowing why she was so mean to Daisy right from the start (although having her march into -- and out of -- the funeral like Alexis Carrington's first appearance on _Dynasty_ without knowing who she was was a nice touch). Parkes has proven that he can take a good script and make it better, while elevating a terrific script to something pretty amazing. Makes you wonder what he could do with a real budget and longer shooting schedule. Read full review at https://hotchka.com/a-house-built-on-lies-review