Writer-director Pascal Payant’s The Art of Telling Lies drops four Europeans into an invitation-only weekend that feels too curated to be real. What starts as a polite, high-end meet-up in a secluded castle quickly turns into a tight little trap designed to force secrets into the open, whether anyone’s ready or not.
Arriving at an old European mansion are Malin (Sara Hagnö), a famed news journalist; Ester (Syama Rayner), a savvy political aide; Isaac (Oris Erhuero), a highly sought-after speaker on the subject of assisted suicide; and Noah (Declan O’Connor), a loudmouth social media influencer. The mansion belongs to a man named Thomas (Christian Wennberg), who is not there. Instead, his associate Walter (Guido Broscheit) greets everyone, shows them their rooms, and then locks them inside the mansion. Let the escape room theatrics begin.
Our visitors are all strangers, but they’re there for a reason. Walter pulls out a tablet and plays a video from Thomas. It shows Malin, who was exonerated for her daughter’s pool drowning, now implicated in her death. Then there’s the sex tape of Ester cheating on her husband with a prominent CEO. Isaac is not just an expert on assisted suicide, but has already assisted in six illegal procedures. Noah attended a swanky party thrown by Walter months ago and is seen walking out of the bedroom of an underage girl. Then there’s Walter, who is essentially a Jeffrey Epstein-type, and all the evidence of his “parties” is in the footage. The exposure prompts Walter to immediately kill himself with a gun.
The Art of Telling Lies is basically an escape room with consequences. It gathers its players, locks the doors, and hands them a nasty little puzzle: each person is being blackmailed. The “way out” is to commit a compromising act, walk away scot-free, and watch the evidence get wiped. That setup turns the whole thing into a morality test. You’re pushed into admitting to a smaller wrongdoing to bury the bigger truth. Do you dirty your hands to save your reputation, your freedom, your future, or do you refuse?
“…his associate Walter greets everyone, shows them their rooms, and then locks them inside the mansion. Let the escape room theatrics begin.”
The moral component centers on truth. For example, Noah insists he didn’t do anything, and Malin assures him that if the story ever leaks, he can stand behind the truth. The film circles this idea a few times: knowing who you are is the only truth you can actually stand on, because rumors and innuendo are basically a weather system—always moving, always changing, always outside your control. At the same time, the characters’ relationships with their loved ones deteriorate as the lies they’ve been telling one another come to light. This meeting is just the catalyst that sends everything tumbling down.
The most interesting part of The Art of Telling Lies is that the film is decidedly European. It’s diverse, featuring characters from various EU countries. Dialogue alternates between English and other languages, which is a trend I see in other European films. The intertwining of each character’s stories is incredibly complex. Some might say it gets convoluted, but with a little concentration, it’s easy to stay on track, particularly when we go back several months. It’s like the television show Lost, but in a tight ninety minutes.
As far as the ripped-from-the-headlines angle goes, we’re essentially dealing with Epstein Island and how sex — especially sex with minors — creates a fragile network of power, corruption, and deceit. An event like this snaps that web off its foundation. When it’s over, it’s ugly and gross. Like most European tales, it’s a dry, grounded gross, with a fantastic cast that wallows in the moral mudpit. I haven’t even mentioned the major twist involving a character I haven’t brought up yet.
Pascal Payant’s The Art of Telling Lies ultimately dares its characters to decide what they’re willing to sacrifice to keep their names clean—and whether “truth” even survives once it hits the socials. By the end, the film has turned its sealed-castle setup into a ruthless little character evaluation that leaves no one unscathed.
For screening information, visit The Art of Telling Lies official website.
"…decidedly European."
