Mainstream Spotlight: Lie With Me

April 12, 2019
TUCKER-BANKSHOT

Welcome back to Mainstream Spotlight where we take a look at theatrically released films that feature real, unsimulated sex scenes. Today we're looking at Canadian filmmaker Clement Virgo's 2005 intimacy drama Lie with Me. The digital revolution brought about a lot of movies like this, including our last film in the spotlight, the previous year's 9 Songs. Keeping costs down helped filmmakers to go for lower budgeted films with more explicit content, since there was less pressure on them to turn a profit.

Lie With Me centers around Leila (Lauren Lee Smith), a torrid Toronto dweller who beds a succession of partners and embarks on all manner of sexual escapades, including masturbating to porn and engaging in intercourse alongside another copulating couple. She soon finds herself in a relationship with the equally damaged David (Eric Balfour), and the two embark on a destructive relationship.

The film opens with Smith on the couch doing the aforementioned masturbating to porn, a terrific harbinger of things to come...

The first sexual encounter between Leila and David occurs eighteen minutes into the movie in a drain pipe where they attempt some mutual masturbation, with David eventually fleeing the scene...

Seven minutes later, the two have sex for the first time with Smith playing with Balfour's erect penis while she talks to him about another woman...

The two eventually fuck on the floor, though it's difficult to tell if there's actual penetration due to the camera angels chosen...

Thirty-three minutes into the movie we get another unsimulated sex scene as Balfour goes down on Smith...

Not long after, the two have sex from behind with Balfour really stroking his fingers between Smith's legs, though again the penetration itself is difficult to discern...

While the film didn't necessarily tarnish either actor's career, neither of them ever really ascended the stairway to stardom, either. Smith has done just fine for herself, landing several roles in high profile projects, including as Michael Shannon's wife in Best Picture winner The Shape of Water...