Cuesta’s bold, brave, and often uncomfortable debut feature offered a brutally honest portrait of vulnerability, confused desire, and a need for belonging, which upset many critics upon its release in 2001. L.I.E. is available on DVD and selected streaming sites.
Michael Cuesta’s uncomfortable and brave exploration of unresolved grief, rebellion, sexuality, desire and vulnerability in adolescence is nothing short of outstanding. Centred around the affluent communities surrounding the famous Long Island Expressway, the film opens with fifteen-year-old Howie (the exceptional Paul Dano) standing on a bridge overlooking the speeding cars on the expressway.
As the vehicles speed beneath him, he steps up onto the railing, walking its length, trying not to fall, before stopping and standing on the thin bar, daring to put one foot out. Then, as the opening credits roll and Howie lies on his bed, flicking through newspaper clippings of the accident that killed his mum, he says, “L.I.E.; the Long Island Expressway. You got the lanes going West, and you got the lanes going East. Then you got the lanes going straight to hell.”
Howie’s home life has never been the same since the day his mum died on exit 52; his dad is distant and cold, as he fucks his secretaries from work and concentrates only on his job and maintaining the family income. Meanwhile, Howie is hanging around with Gary (Billy Kay), a bad boy who casually rents out his body when needed, while engaging in petty theft with Howie as his wingman. Gary is a friend and mentor to Howie, but also something more; he is Howie’s first real crush. But when the boys steal from Big John (Brian Cox), a respected ex-marine businessman who also happens to like young boys, Howie finds himself on an expressway to hell, one that only has a few available exits.
Cuesta’s bold, brave, and often uncomfortable debut feature offered a brutally honest portrait of vulnerability, confused desire, and a need for belonging, which upset many critics upon its release in 2001. Watching L.I.E. now, its discussions on grooming, control, manipulation, and the vulnerability of young people whose only support structure is outside of the home are ahead of their time. As is Cuesta’s bold exploration of a boy exploring his emerging sexual orientation in all the wrong places, only to eventually find what he is looking for outside of the control others wield.
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