White Lie (2019)

White Lie: Directed by Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas. With Kacey Rohl, Amber Anderson, Martin Donovan, Thomas Antony Olajide. A popular undergrad faking cancer struggles to maintain her secret.

“It would have been easy to produce a film with this premise and provide a cut-out u0026#39;mean girlu0026#39; as the central character. Thankfully the writers and producers here are much smarter and have given us something quite unique.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eKacey Rohlu0026#39;s performance as Katie Arneson is brilliant. Morally her behaviour is appalling, but is played with such subtlety that I found myself strangely sympathetic.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eShe is obviously mentally ill, whether by whim of fate or something darker in her past. Her increasingly desperate attempts to keep the lie alive do not feel evil or driven by avarice, but by the need to hold on to the acceptance and love she finds with her u0026#39;diagnosisu0026#39;.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film lacks the usual Hollywood trappings and as such feels like an almost documentary-like record of a period in Katieu0026#39;s life. Be prepared to be thrown into the story (and out of it again) with almost no exposition or explanation and certainly no satisfying u0026#39;gotcha!u0026#39; ending.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOverall a teriffic piece of work by all involved, which I highly recommend.”