Where the Truth Lies is a 2005 thriller film[4] written and directed by Atom Egoyan and starring Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Alison Lohman.

The film alternates between 1957, when comedy duo Lanny Morris (Bacon) and Vince Collins (Firth) are at the height of their success, and 1972, when journalist Karen O'Connor (Lohman) is determined to unravel the mystery of a young woman found dead in their hotel suite 15 years before.

In 1957, immediately after co-hosting a 39-hour-long polio telethon in Miami, entertainers Lanny Morris and Vince Collins fly north to open the new showroom of a New Jersey hotel run by mobster Sally Sanmarco, who has intimidated them into appearing in order to improve his own image.

Fifteen years later, journalist Karen O'Connor, who as a young polio survivor first met the duo at the telethon, accepts a job to ghostwrite Collins's autobiography—a deal from which he will earn $1 million.

Karen, who has idolized the comedians ever since first meeting them, encounters Morris, accompanied by his valet Reuben and manager Irv, by chance on a flight, where she shares a dinner table with them.

Gradually, it becomes clear what really happened that night 15 years before: the three had engaged in a ménage à trois, fueled by drugs and booze, and at some point, Collins tried to have sex with Morris, who resisted violently.

While both Morris and Collins were convinced the other murdered Maureen, they smuggled her body in a crate full of lobsters (a gift from Sanmarco) with Reuben's assistance, shipping it ahead of them to the New Jersey hotel.

She ultimately decides to publish the full story only after Mrs. O'Flaherty's passing, choosing to spare her the revelation of her daughter's deviant behaviors that contributed to her murder.

Rupert Holmes admittedly patterned Vince Collins and Lanny Morris on his childhood idols, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, although the plot was pure fiction.

The film's soundtrack includes "Josephine, Please No Lean on the Bell" performed by Louis Prima, "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears, "Oye Como Va" by Santana, and "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic.

"White Rabbit", written by Grace Slick and originally recorded by Jefferson Airplane, is featured prominently in one scene, while "You Know, You Know" and "Sanctuary", performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra, appear in the film's most erotic sequence.

[8] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times observed, "Mr. Egoyan [...] tends to stray from the storytelling straight and narrow, taking a generally metafictional approach to narrative.

Yet because he also doesn't want to be imprisoned by genre, he tries to shake loose its rules, much as Robert Altman did in 1973 with his laid-back take on Raymond Chandler's Long Goodbye.

"[9] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "film noir right down to the plot we can barely track; we're reminded of William Faulkner asking Raymond Chandler who did it in The Big Sleep and Chandler saying he wasn't sure [...] Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of Sunset Boulevard [...] I have seen Where the Truth Lies twice and enjoyed it more when I understood its secrets.

More bothersome still is the stiff, on-topic nature of most of the film; with Karen in full interrogation mode nearly all the time, scenes and characters are rarely allowed to breathe and develop of their own accord [...] a problem unrelieved by Lohman's performance, which reveals nothing beneath the surface or between the lines.

Bacon and Firth both prove more than adept at conveying their characters' seamy sides, which at least lends weight to the distasteful revelations in which the story is rooted, and are reasonably effective overall in cutting the desired profiles of glib entertainers taking full advantage of fame's perks.

"[14] Philip French of The Observer called the film "a rich brew that draws on Citizen Kane and Rashomon" and ultimately "holds the attention and makes us want to know the outcome.

Egoyan won the Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film was nominated in the Art Direction/Production Design, Editing, Sound, and Original Score categories.