The title is an acronym for Long Island Expressway, one of the most dangerous motorways in America's East, where film director Alan J Pakula perished. It's also a rite-of-passage metaphor for Howie (Paul Franklin Dano), a 16-year-old whose mother was killed on the road and who doesn't know which way to travel - get into petty crime, or let the ex-Marine whose doorbell sounds a muscular anthem take him under his wing, or somewhere. Both man and boy, in different ways, are condemned to live a l.i.e.
Michael Cuesta's film is unexpectedly discreet about paedophilia, thanks mainly to Brian Cox's performance as a man who might be grooming Howie for his own perverse pleasure, or looking avuncularly after him while his dad is in jail. The scenes that they share, as Cox lets the lad take the wheel of his sports car and feel its horsepower, have a jittery tenseness, as if the director were leading up to a declaration or commitment, but deciding that discretion is the safer part of exploitation.
Maybe so, though to put out a film suggesting paedophilia has any redemptive quality may be risky. It ends abruptly, with what looks like a pre-emptive strike against such an accusation. We're left wanting to know more, but that shows our interest wasn't ill-placed.
L.I.E.
Cert: cert18
