The central figures in the story include a father/husband, Naveen, who has carefully orchestrated a simple life for himself. One where he has a nice house, with a wife and a daughter. It’s not Naveen’s lies that cause everything to come crashing down, even if the film wants to unsuccessfully pretend that that’s where we’re headed.
The first big secret - and for awhile this appears to be the only secret and I was prepared to give up on the movie, but luckily there is still a chain of lies to be broken. Anyways, back to the first secret, the wife/mother Sangeeta has been having an affair with Naveen’s brother, very openly and loudly with husband and daughter both home. An affair is one thing, but when you see how she handles herself in the aftermath, her complete lack of morals is absolutely disgusting. And then she somehow gets even worse.
Audiences will feel devastated for the daughter, Simran, a teenage girl already seeing a therapist for an eating disorder and now has the instantaneous combustion of her parents’ marriage to deal with. And the hits keep coming for Simran. Eventually other secrets and lies get revealed one by one, each affecting multiple characters and forcing them to re-examine their life and how they got here.
The Effects of Lying is nothing if not a perfectly titled movie about what makes up a person’s identity. Which lies matter and which ones don’t. It even includes some brief commentary on the prejudices against Pakistanis living in London. It’s a slow-moving and oddly quiet movie which ends up packing a big punch courtesy of multiple little jabs.
There are some strange tonal turns near the end, and it takes awhile to really get into the story, but I ultimately liked how it said what it wanted to say. It’s a very well-produced, well acted movie that has an effective screenplay, at times.
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