A Little White Lie (Maren, 2023)
“They all want to be writers and none of them like to read…”
A Little White Lie takes place at a fictional university where faculty think that having a J.D. Salinger-like reclusive author come to their literary festival is going to put them “back on the literary map.” I’m not sure where that literary map is or what schools are on it, but the mindset seems more characteristic of the 70s or 80s than the current moment.
The film is a satire, sure, but what is it satirizing? When a New York handyman shows up playing a famous author, the joke may be on the faculty who worship the fame he symbolizes even while being unaware of what he actually looks like. But the literary conference he attends is more of a millennial roast, which an angry, Black feminist writer responding scornfully to the respected visitor for daring to ask if she’s ever considered writing from a White point-of-view.
In other words, the comedy is a mix of the generic and the specific, with neither being developed to the point where its satirical lens can penetrate far enough to raise genuine laughter.
If it succeeds marginally, it is due to the considerable talents of Michael Shannon who plays the handyman as a quiet, bewildered presence, closer to Chance the Gardner (Being There) than Forrest Gump. There is so little backstory about either the handyman or Shriver (the author he is maybe impersonating) that film practically begs you to ask what is motivating him and whether he really is an imposter.
There is something gentle and a little beautiful about the way Shannon conveys a reader who genuinely loves the literature that others are gushing over but don’t actually think deeply about. While the lackluster nature of the jokes keeps the film from gaining momentum as a comedy, Shannon’s ability to communicate wistful insight keeps it from ever running totally aground. There is something more Horatian than Junvenalian about the satire, It pokes gentle fun at the pretentiousness of those who have literary festivals, but it also insists that, at heart, there is something more valuable in quality literature than the fame that it endows to celebrity authors.
A Little White Lie will be in select theaters and on VOD beginning March 3, 2023.
