Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Documentary exploring the human tendency to be dishonest. Inspired by the work of social scientist, Dan Ariely, the film interweaves personal stories, expert opinions, behavioral experiments, and archival footage to reveal how and why people lie.
A competent and engaging documentary built around Dan Ariely's behavioral research on dishonesty. The interweaving of personal testimonies, experiments, and expert commentary makes for an accessible and illuminating watch, earning it above-average marks for structure and novelty of subject treatment. However, the cinematography is fairly standard documentary fare with no particularly distinctive visual language, and since there are no traditional actors, the 'acting' dimension covers the interviewees and talking heads, who are earnest but uneven in screen presence. The ending wraps things up in a satisfying but somewhat expected way, leaving little lingering provocation.