White Lies (1997)

movie

(159)

Country: USA
Genres: Comedy
Release: 1997-05-15
Director: Ken Selden
Writers: Paul Chart , Christopher Mensel , Ken Selden
Language: English
Stars: Julie Warner (I) , Lawrence Gilliard Jr. , Lawrence Gilliard Jr. , Terry Kinney , Rosanna Arquette , Harvey Fierstein , Daryl Mitchell , Lisa Nicole Carson , Caroline Aaron , Novella Nelson , Angela Hall
Runtime: 94 min
Awards: N/A
AKA: White Lies , White Lies (United Kingdom) , White Lies - Das Leben ist zu kurz, um ehrlich zu sein (Germany) , Mentiras do Bem (Brazil) , White Lies (United States of America)
Plot: A young black man pretends he is an art student in order to pick up girls at the Guggenheim Museum. When the attractive - and white - assistant director of a SoHo gallery overhears him, she assumes he is an artist and offers to exhibit his work. He plays along when she suggests how much he could earn from "his" paintings. Within days he's living a double life, paying a formally-trained artist junkie for her rejected works, and falling in love with the assistant director. Things very quickly get way out of hand. This is rather conventional plotting - we've all seen the "double-life with romantic complications" scenario many times before. This film's strength, however, lies in its use of that scenario to critique, quite savagely, both the New York art scene and black/white power relations. It exposes the lies at the heart of both in a very economical and satisfying way.
IMDB:tt0118156