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LMN’s ‘Deadly Resolutions’ series of thrillers for the New Year continues with The Lies We Bury, which is also known as Guilty Secrets. Why these films get retitled before they premiere on LMN is a mystery in and of itself. Perhaps the network could also make a movie about that subject.
The Lies We Bury focuses on lawyer Rylee Kerrigan (Kyla Nova), newly hired for the firm run by Tucker Stackhouse (Brian Childers) in Cherry Hill, Ohio. Rylee had bigger dreams for her career but ended up back in her home town to work in an office that seems to do little to no business. Haunting the office is Tucker’s grandson Scott (Doug Noble), always doing some busy work, it seems, while also seeming to be eavesdropping on every conversation Rylee has. He claims he’s just there to install a new WiFi network and computers for his grandfather, and Rylee assumes Scott is just welching off the old man as he’s living with him as well. When Rylee uncovers an old case file from a 1996 murder, she believes that the convicted killer — who was her mom’s best friend — was innocent and sets out to prove her theory. Tucker is on board, as long as it doesn’t interfere with her own caseload (of one client), but Scott and Rylee’s mother Patti (Lindsay Hartley) do everything they can to dissuade her from digging too deep with their overly suspicious behavior. Do the two of them know something Rylee doesn’t? Rylee is also inspired by a local politician, Lynn Wright (Dee Wallace) and her daughter Elizabeth (Leigh Nieves), who are launching a program to help those wrongly incarcerated. Scott seems to think that they’re all bluster and no action but Rylee admires them.
But as Rylee continues to dig, she manages to irritate Barbara Porter (Alyssa Renee Olson), who keeps shooing Rylee off her property, the mother of the alleged killer, and some other shadowy figures who now want her dead, using methods from a note to a vehicular attack, while the incarcerated woman keeps telling Rylee to just drop her crusade. It’s not until a few others turn up dead that she agrees to let Rylee pursue the case but Rylee finds herself in dire straits after she’s abducted and learns the shocking truth.
The Lies We Bury is one of LMN’s better mystery-thrillers, and we can chalk that up to the talents of co-star Lindsay Hartley, who also co-wrote and directed the movie. (Hartley may be best remembered from her days on NBC soap Passions, where she met her husband-to-be Justin Hartley, though they divorced in 2012.) The story is a surprisingly tight mystery with enough red herrings to keep you guessing as to who is behind everything from the 1996 murder to the events in the present. Hartley has also assembled an excellent cast, including the iconic Dee Wallace — best known for her roles in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Howling — and her lead Kyla Nova. For the most part, the cast all do excellent work and the script doesn’t verge into eye-roll territory, outside of one too-convenient plot device that gets Rylee kidnapped. Nova gives a compelling and sincere performances as the new lawyer determined to seek justice for someone she believes is wrongly accused, and even she questions her mother’s own obviously odd behavior that makes her seem like she’s hiding something (these character beats are often only frustratingly obvious to the audience while the characters just carry on as if everything is completely normal, so good on Hartley for making this all the more believable). It’s also good to see later in the story that Hartley’s Patti finally admits she’s been acting weird and gives Rylee more information about the case she’s digging in to and shares her worries for her daughter’s safety. Both actresses work together extremely well and have a good bond (although they look more like sisters than mother and daughter). The whole movie, however, rests firmly on Nova’s shoulders and she is actually pretty fantastic.
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Doug Noble is also very good as Scott. He plays the character with just enough suss to make the viewers think he knows more than he’s giving, but the deeper Rylee gets into the mystery the more Scott becomes invested in protecting her, eventually revealing some little secrets he’s been keeping that ultimately helps Rylee in the end. And could there also be a romance developing between the two? It’s almost like a Hallmark movie … with murder. Brian Childers plays Tucker with a warm benevolence, eager to see Rylee succeed but also putting his foot down when the danger becomes too great. Alyssa Renee Olson plays Barbara Porter with just the right amount of white trashiness (and fans of the sitcom 2 Broke Girls will instantly recognize her waitress uniform as the same one from that show). Dee Wallace actually doesn’t appear much in the movie after we first see her near the beginning of the movie, but when she does get her big scene she is so good and so surprising in her performance then from the roles she’s best known for. The entire cast, though, is excellent.
Hartley’s skillful direction and writing keeps the plot moving, holding the viewer in its grip and giving us a big revelation in the final act (although the local amusement park setting is a bit odd since there’s no one there, the place is all lit up and the empty ferris wheel is spinning). The head-scratching bits are minor and not enough to detract from what is ultimately a real cracker of a mystery that will keep you glued to the TV and on the edge of your seat until the very end.
The Lies We Bury has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.