Quick Info:
- Title: Lie with Me (Arrête avec tes mensonges)
- Year: 2022
- Directed by: Olivier Peyon
- Starring: Guillaume de Tonquédec, Victor Belmondo, Guilaine Londez
- Where I Watched It: Streaming (with tissues nearby, because wow)
Queer-o-Meter:
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 (4 out of 5 Pride Flags)
This one radiates quiet queer intensity, lingering heartbreak, and the ache of what-ifs.
One-Line Summary:
A successful novelist returns to his hometown and is forced to confront the ghosts of a teenage love affair that shaped his life — and the lies that silenced it.
Standout Scene:
There’s a scene where Stéphane (played by Guillaume de Tonquédec) looks at Lucas (Victor Belmondo) and, for just a second, you see all the history in his eyes — regret, longing, love, grief. No melodrama, no fireworks, just raw human emotion simmering under the surface. It floored me.
Favorite Line:
“Arrête avec tes mensonges.” (“Stop with your lies.”)
This isn’t just a line — it’s the heartbeat of the film. Honestly, I think the English distributors did the movie a disservice by slapping on Lie with Me. Sure, it works, but the French title cuts deeper, cleaner, and makes the story feel that much more personal.
Would I Rewatch?
- Absolutely!
Review:
I loved this movie — like, really loved it. It’s not flashy or trying to reinvent queer cinema; it’s quiet, tender, and devastating in the best way. Stéphane is a middle-aged writer, openly gay now, but carrying around the memory of his first love like a wound that never closed. When he’s invited back to his hometown for a literary event, he ends up face-to-face not only with those memories but with Lucas — the son of Thomas, his teenage lover.
The film slips between past and present, weaving together the innocence of first love with the bitterness of everything that was lost. You see young Stéphane and Thomas burning with the intensity of a teenage affair, knowing full well it can’t last, and then you see adult Stéphane, decades later, carrying the scars of those choices. It’s not about grand gestures — it’s about how silence and shame shape a life.
What struck me most is how human it feels. Every look, every hesitation, every suppressed word carried weight. Guillaume de Tonquédec is phenomenal — he doesn’t need to say much to break your heart. And Victor Belmondo (yes, Jean-Paul’s grandson) has this presence that’s both grounding and haunting. Their chemistry isn’t about romance; it’s about inheritance, legacy, and the ways trauma and love pass down through generations.
I found it moving and heartfelt in a way that snuck up on me. By the end, I wasn’t sobbing so much as quietly wrecked, sitting there in that kind of silence where you don’t want to move because the film’s still holding you.
Final Thoughts:
This movie deserves more love than it’s gotten. It’s not loud, it’s not flashy — but it lingers, and it aches, and it reminds you how those first loves never really leave us. The title says it all: stop with your lies. Stop hiding. Stop pretending it didn’t matter. Because it mattered. It always does.
The Cinema Club Verdict:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 out of 5 Stars. I’m giving it the full set because it hit me straight in the heart and I’m still thinking about it.