The following review may contain spoilers.
A Hundred Lies follows a musician’s journey through the difficult territory of music production and the sacrifices that must be acknowledged in order to make it big. Yes, it isn’t very realistic from a narrative point of view, but the film does its job of putting together an appealing character’s arc and solving it without excessive manipulation of its story. Ricky (Rob Raco) is a 25-year-old dreamer who spends his days composing music, singing in dark bars, and taking care of his ill mother. When he meets Fiona (Humberly González), it becomes the starting point of a beautiful journey, but then Ricky’s story becomes a harrowing reflection of every trope we associate with a struggling artist.
It does take its liberties, and that’s where I disconnected myself from the story, but in the end, Ricky’s fall is loud and almost poetic. Rouzbeh Heydari‘s film isn’t afraid to take its story towards a dark conclusion that, even though it feels a bit rushed, it also follows the only direction the film could take. Ricky faces the consequences of his own actions, and his character’s journey doesn’t call for twists and turns that could redeem him. Heydari goes for an honest conclusion that doesn’t necessarily feel appealing. It feels almost as if he was never in control of the story he was trying to tell, and that’s not exactly a negative thing about it. It’s the exact opposite: Ricky’s twisted moral code is universal in some way, and Heydari just shoots his version of it.
Deep in the center of A Hundred Lies, there’s an intimate journey that I was able to connect with rather easily. It’s not often that a film that feels generic accomplishes this, but the drama thriller was good enough to make me think about it for a while. I was expecting to have its tune get inside my head, but it wasn’t catchy enough. The catchy thing was its performances, especially González’s, who has all the potential to become a prominent female star in the presence of better scripts.
The film tends to complicate itself by showing the dark side of the music business. And while this doesn’t have a negative effect on the story (Brandon McKnight’s performance as Terrence, the music mogul, is superb), there are more important things to expand on. When A Hundred Lies doesn’t insist on being a crime thriller and just focuses on two well-designed central characters, it’s much more interesting. Ricky and Fiona’s chemistry is tangible and admirable, with Fiona being the unconditional partner and admirer that all musicians wish for. That’s where the film got me, and near the ending, when I realized the film wasn’t going to have a happy ending, I saw how the relationship between its two characters had engaged me into believing that their quest was possible.
Good characters. That’s the major achievement of A Hundred Lies, an indie production that tries too hard to be a crime thriller and could instead be a romance drama. But perhaps it’s the soft side of me speaking out loud. The genre doesn’t usually make me believe in two characters being destined to be with one another, but after Fiona and Ricky meet, it was easy. That is the work of two good performers following a good script, a basic aspect of a film I found myself enjoying more than I had imagined.
Film critic. Lover of all things horror. Member of the OFCS. RT Approved Critic.
