Sweet Little Lies (2010)

Underneath the veneer of orderly lives, frozen smiles and awkward averted glances, SWEET LITTLE LIES is a cold-as-steel clinical study of a couple. Married for three years, the couple keeps up the apparently tender rituals of newlyweds, but all is not as bright and beautiful as it would seem. Miki Nakatani, “the best Japanese actress of her generation” (Mark Schilling, Japan Times) plays the emotionally and sexually starved wife in Hitoshi Yazaki’s anti-melodramatic chronicle of the disintegration of a marriage. Even the most seasoned viewers will be struck by the menacing calm of Yazaki’s compositions, and his unveiling of lives made from lies.

… One of the key questions as the film inches its way to the finale, will be whether the couple can maintain status quo as per the title in keeping their sweet little lies to themselves, or as part of matrimony decide to tell each other the truth. Will they be better off in doing so and living up to an honest relationship, or will ignorance still continue to provide that bliss? We learn guilt has already set in, yet didn't see whether both Satochi and Kuriko will be learning from their lessons. The film raises questions, but you're left on your own devices to provide the answer, which is never immediate. For those in relationships, this film plants that fear factor into you, questioning how much you know and trust someone else, and for those who are not, well, did this film set in motion that a trustworthy relationship is something of a pipe dream?

I'd like to reckon this film like an anti-thesis and companion piece to Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, where a couple meets and contemplates a relationship because their spouses are cheating on them with each other. In this one, we go over to the other side and observe what happens when both spouses cheat on each other, yet remain quite ambivalent about it all, each keeping their own titular sweet little lies. One film is steep in romanticism, while this one presents a frightfully possible reality through its cast performances and composition - cinematography under Isao Ishii is beautiful - that masks the underlying currents of a troubled relationship. Definitely one of the best films I've seen this year!