A 15-year-old Long Island boy loses everything and everyone he knows, soon becoming involved in a relationship with a much older man.
L.I.E. – Long Island Expressway (2001)
Director: Michael Cuesta
Writer: Michael Cuesta
County: USA
Language: English
Gernre: Drama
Duration: 1h 37 min
Year: 2001
Stars: Brian Cox, Paul Dano, Bruce Altman
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L.I.E. is an independent film, released in 2001, about a relationship between Howie, a 15-year-old boy, and a pederast known as ‘Big John’. The title is an acronym for the Long Island Expressway. The film was directed by Michael Cuesta who has said that the film is about exploring sexuality.[1]. It stars Paul Dano as Howie and Brian Cox as Big John. Sexual contact between the two is merely suggested, not shown, and there is only one sex scene between an adult couple. The controversial portrayal of Big John as a sympathetic sexual predator earned the film an NC-17 rating.
Howie Blitzer is deeply affected by the death of his mother in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway and finds solace in the company of his best friend Gary (Billy Kay), a juvenile delinquent and hustler. Gary is attracted to Howie, but Howie is unsure of his sexuality. They have two other 15-year-old friends, one of whom, Kevin, has an incestuous relationship with his sister. The four boys regularly break into neighborhood houses.
One night, they break into the house of ‘Big John’ Harrigan during his birthday party. Gary knows his way around the house and it transpires later that he used to have a sexual relationship with Big John. They make a noise and Big John confronts them, ripping a pocket off Howie’s pants. They manage to get away with a pair of valuable World War II pistols.
John confronts Gary over the burglary and Gary names Howie as his accomplice. John is manipulative in his pursuit and grooming of Howie. He does research on Howie then approaches him at a diner, speaking French because he knows the boy speaks French and he pretends that he knew his mother. He offers the boy a lift home and Howie is impressed that Big John happens to drive Howie’s dream car. Once he has gained Howie’s confidence he pulls out the torn pocket and demands that Howie returns the guns. Howie manages to get one gun back from Gary’s room, and returns it. When he arrives at the house, John has a photograph of a shirtless pre-pubescent boy upon his laptop. John wants $1000 for the other gun and Howie offers to work for him to pay off the debt.
John then puts his plan for seducing Howie into action. He puts on a pornographic video showing heterosexual oral sex then sits down beside Howie. He starts to stroke the boy’s thigh and says, “What have you got that’s worth a thousand dollars?” He also asks Howie if his penis is more than five inches and claims “I’m the best cocksucker in the whole Western Hemisphere.” Howie does not respond to his advances.
John has a 19-year-old live-in lover called Scott who says to John as Howie leaves, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” John responds, “I am. I always am.”
When he returns home, Howie masturbates to a fantasy involving both John and the girl in the video. Gary then steals money from Howie’s distant father (Bruce Altman) and disappears to Los Angeles. This affects Howie and his confusion over his sexual identity increases. Michael Cuesta has said that this sexual ambiguity is at the heart of the film. Howie doesn’t know if he is gay or straight
John and Howie begin a tenuous friendship in which John becomes a kind of father figure to the boy. There is no sexual activity, but there is talk of sex. When John lets Howie drive his car and John implies he was some kind of James Bond figure, Howie says, “James Bond doesn’t go around blowing boys.” Howie realises that he wields sexual power over John and John realises this too. This is possibly a new experience for John and Brian Cox has said, “Big John realises that Howie is much more than a little boy, a young boy he can hit on”. Michael Cuesta has said that John was confused. John didn’t know if he wanted “to be with him, sexually, or just father him.” [4]. John realises that Howie is special.
Howie stays over at John’s house and John asks Scott to go and stay in a motel for a few nights. Howie wanders round the house and, while picking up a toy drum on a mantelpiece discovers a stash of pictures of semi-naked boys. Some are pictures of a younger (and naked) Gary and others are of a shirtless blond 11-year-old boy, confirming, as with the image on the laptop, that John is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent boys as well as adolescents and older teenagers. Scott comes into the room and warns Howie off taking what is his, i.e. John.
Howie is particularly vulnerable because he believes his father has abandoned him, and later that evening comes into John’s bedroom wearing just his underpants, expecting John to sleep with him. But when John tells Howie his father didn’t abandon him, but is in jail, Howie breaks down and cries. In his compassion for Howie, John pulls back from molesting the boy and leaves him to sleep by himself. The next morning, John is all charm, fixing Howie a huge breakfast and he then takes Howie to see his father in jail.
In the way he treats Howie, John demonstrates behavior that is like his public persona, rather than the dark sexual predator that he also is, but after dropping Howie off, he still returns to the place where boys wait for chickenhawks. As he sits in his car, Scott, who is devastated by the attention John is giving to Howie, drives by and shoots him dead.
At the end, everyone Howie has ever loved has left him: his mother and John are dead; Gary has run away, and his father is in prison and in the final scene he is contemplating the expressway, vowing he won’t let it get him too.
