LIES WE TELL Trailer (2024) Agnes O Casey

LIES WE TELL Trailer (2024) Agnes O Casey

LIES WE TELL Trailer (2024) Agnes O'Casey, David Wilmot
© 2024 - Quiver Distribution
A young woman must defend both her family estate and herself from the very people she least expected: her own family! Check out the official trailer for "Lies We Tell."

In this new British period drama, English-Irish actress Agnes O'Casey, known for "The Miracle Club" and the series "Dangerous Liaisons," stars as Maud, a strong-willed heiress trying to take control of her family affairs for the first time. When her beloved father passes away, leaving her with an opulent estate and mansion, Maud finds herself defending her fortune from a variety of vultures. Surprisingly, her biggest threat comes in the form of her conniving Uncle and her freeloading cousins.

It seems Uncle Silas (played by David Wilmot, from HBO's "Station Eleven") wants Maud to marry his son, her cousin, Edward (Chris Walley), in order to take over the family estate and become the new head of the household. Little does he know that Maud isn't playing that game -- she's a tough cookie who can hold her own.

"Lies We Tell" is inspired by the 1864 Gothic novel "Uncle Silas" by Irish author J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The film is directed by British television helmer Lisa Mulcahy ("Years and Years," "Red Rock") and written by Elisabeth Gooch.

Costarring Holly Sturton, Elaine O'Dwyer, and Mark Doherty, "Lies We Tell" is arriving on VOD and Digital platforms on September 13th. Watch the trailer above.

synopsis:
In an isolated manor, an orphaned heiress (Agnes O'Casey) must fight her guardian for her inheritance -- and her life.

directed by Lisa Mulcahy

starring Agnes O'Casey, David Wilmot, Chris Walley, Holly Sturton, Elaine O'Dwyer, Mark Doherty

release date September 13, 2024
For more than 150 years, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas has been a dusty jewel of gothic fiction. It feels as if the story has been adapted for the screen more often than has been the case. A plucky heiress. A sinister relative who stands to inherit all her money if she falls down a well. How did Hammer not get round to it?

We do, at least, have an impressively lean new version from the experienced TV director Lisa Mulcahy. Lies We Tell lacks the cobwebby atmosphere we expect from adaptations of 19th-century sensation fiction. Not all the secondary characters are satisfactorily fleshed out. But a startlingly strong performance from fast-rising Agnes O’Casey – vulnerable one moment, a pillar of marble the next – sets the film out from the pack. One thinks a little of Florence Pugh’s arrival in the not-entirely-dissimilar Lady Macbeth. And that is not faint praise.

Large chunks of the novel’s opening sections have been excised. At more rapid pace than on the page, young Maud finds herself propelled into Uncle Silas’s guardianship and introduced to her cousins Emily and Edward (Holly Sturton and sometime Young Offender Chris Walley). Silas is suspected of murdering an old gambling acquaintance and of generally being the most appalling moustache-twirler imaginable. We soon gather he is plotting to marry his son to Maud and thus work his own way towards her fortune.

[ Agnes O’Casey: ‘It’s just been so easy to hate women, no matter the period. And that is terrifying’Opens in new window ]

The reliable David Wilmot brings unexpected saloon-bar matiness to this version of Silas (at least at first). We get some sense of how he wins over unsuspecting financial prey. As the film progresses, however, Mulcahy allows the reality of sexual violence – uncomfortably explicit in one scene – and the cruelty of pseudoscientific misogyny greater prominence. This is a society in which icy showers are prescribed for the condition of female “hysteria” (the term derived from the Greek for “womb”).

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That approach does come with some loss of ambience. The film feels brighter and bolder than would best suit the material. Happily, O’Casey’s strong presence offers much compensation. This is a woman hard done by, but the actor knows how to stand prouder than the figurehead of a galleon under bombardment. Let’s see her as Joan of Arc.
Here is a tightly laced, elegantly cut gothic period drama that might unfairly get overlooked as the barrage of upmarket cinema vying for awards begins. The 19th-century source material, Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel Uncle Silas, isn’t super well-known outside university literature departments, and the lead actors aren’t especially famous names either – although gravelly-voiced David Wilmot, here playing the heavy, has built a career making indelible impressions with supporting roles on film (The Wonder, Ordinary Love, Calm With Horses) and TV (Station Eleven). Likewise, if you caught limited TV series Ridley Road then the talents of Agnes O’Casey will already be a known quantity. But in a way, the freshness of face and/or versatility of both O’Casey and Wilmot, along with the rest of the cast, are what makes this feel like a discovery. It’s definitely something new and different as it insightfully reworks some classic feminist literary notions, filtered through a very 21st-century approach to period material with its unsettling score, jittery editing and nods to horror tropes.

At a girthy mansion called Knowl, at one point described as “a barracks of a place” somewhere in the Irish countryside, teenager Maud Ruthyn (O’Casey) has just inherited everything after the death of her father. However, she’s still a minor and, more unfortunately for her, a woman and therefore not fit to make decisions for herself; Maud therefore becomes the ward of her uncle Silas (Wilmot) until she comes of age. Keen to honour her father’s wishes and the terms of her inheritance, Maud welcomes Silas to her home even though she barely knows him and that he was once accused of murdering a man to whom he owed money – but got off thanks to lack of evidence. Exuding the slithery bonhomie of a cobra meeting a mongoose for the first time, Silas makes himself at home, bringing along his feckless son Edward (Chris Walley) and flibbertigibbet daughter Emily (Holly Sturton), along with Emily’s governess Madame (Grainne Keenan). Before long, Silas’s sinister intentions become clear, which include bullying Maud into marrying her cousin Edward and bribing the servants to turn against her. When brutalising her by proxy doesn’t work, the conspirators threaten to have her committed to an asylum for hysterical women, equipped with what sounds like a 19th-century waterboarding kit.

But Maud has a mongoose’s survival instinct, and the haughty blue-eyed gaze of an aristocratic matron who won’t be screwed around so easily. The script by Elisabeth Gooch appropriates the fruity diction of the times just enough to add credibility without getting bogged down in circumlocution, and O’Casey’s delivery is sharp as a steak knife. It’s a delight to watch her verbally spar with Wilmot’s Silas, coyly jabbing at each other according to the rules of civility but growing more acrimonious as the stakes get higher. Director Lisa Mulcahy (Wasteland, The Legend of Longwood) clears the paths and lets them rip with confident, clear-sighted direction.

Lies We Tell is released on 13 October in Irish and Northern Irish cinemas.

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In Lies We Tell, the traditional gothic trope of a woman in a house fighting nefarious forces is given a feminist twist. Roe McDermott meets the film’s lead actress, rising star Agnes O’Casey.

In Lies We Tell, Agnes O’Casey plays Maud, a recently orphaned heiress who was raised by her father, away from society. Independent, opinionated and determined, her strength is tested when her uncle Silas (David Wilmot) arrives at the manor, claiming the property and her inheritance, and using his violent son to try and coerce Maud into surrendering everything. The atmospheric thriller turns into the story of a gaslit woman’s fight for freedom from the oppressive and vicious sexism seeking to tear her apart. It’s gritty, propulsive and atmospheric, and O’Casey puts in a superb performance.

“The thing I liked about her is that she’s been brought up basically with just her dad, and she’s lived a very secluded life that she’s really enjoyed,” says the actress. “She’s an intellectual and she’s been allowed to just be and enjoy the library, which a lot of women weren’t. Also, she’s kind of been hidden from society, so I always got the feeling she doesn’t have a sense of the normal programming of what it means to be a woman in society - in a great way.

“There’s a Margaret Atwood quote, ‘You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.’ But Maud doesn’t have that man in her head, she’s free of that. I found that really fun, because I’d never got a chance to play someone who just doesn’t think about herself in those ways, about having to be beautiful or docile or ‘feminine’ in expected ways. Then it becomes really interesting when Uncle Silas comes in, because he’s not used to meeting anyone like that. He’s really good at the game of manipulation - but she doesn’t play by the rules and isn’t predisposed to being manipulated. She sees things clearly and addresses them which is fascinating.”

The film deals with heavy themes, but O’Casey hopes the audience appreciates the resilience of her character.

“The energy of the film is about a woman who won’t stop fighting, so I hope audiences enjoy the tension and catharsis.”

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O’Casey had worked with director Lisa Mulcahy before on the BBC One show Ridley Road, which saw the actress play a Jewish girl living in ‘60s Soho, who agrees to infiltrate a neo-Nazi group to fight against the rising fascism of the time. It was O’Casey’s first television job and she received rave reviews. The actress’s grandfather was Jewish, and getting the part encouraged her to look into her family history. She was also very aware of the political resonance of the show for modern audiences.

“I felt really excited that my first job was something that really resonated with me politically, that was a thrill,” says O’Casey. “But there were some hilarious right-wing responses to it (laughs). Men on Twitter were like, ‘How dare they criticise the Conservatives like this?’ And it was like, ‘We never said anything about the Conservative Party. It’s interesting that you’re seeing them when we’re looking at Nazis. That’s obviously coming from you.’ That was so funny and quite illuminating.”

O’Casey is also starring in the upcoming comedy The Miracle Club with Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney, about a group of women who win a pilgrimage to Lourdes. For O’Casey, the opportunity to work with such powerhouses was a dream.

“It was the most surreal experience in my life,” she reflects. “I was so intimidated, but immediately they were all so nice. Laura Linney would come around and do laundry at mine and chat. Maggie is so funny and lovely, and very protective, looking out for me in scenes and being so supportive. And they have so many amazing stories. I was trying to be subtle and not ask too many questions - but then she would just casually say something about what Jane Birkin was like.

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“And you’d be like, 'Thats just the coolest thing ever!’ Then Maggie would say something really profound and I’d say, ‘Oh that’s so beautiful, did you come up with that?’ And she’d reply, ‘No, that’s Wordsworth’. You can’t even be embarrassed - you got corrected by Maggie Smith. The dream!”

Lies We Tell is in cinemas from October 13.

In Lies We Tell, director Lisa Mucahy, working with writer Elisabeth Gooch, puts a feminist top-spin on the Victorian ‘locked-up lady’ genre exemplified by Sheridan Le Fanu’s source novel ‘Uncle Silas’. While Lies We Tell may not be the most memorable title for this Gothic-tinged story of a young Irish heiress and her dangerous leech of an uncle, a singular performance by young talent Agnes O’Casey in the lead role gives this pretty period piece a serrated edge.

The war of wits between Maude (Agnes O’Casey) and her Uncle Silas (David Wilmot) gives the film its sharpness

Gooch has taken liberties with the text, which pays off in some respects even if it muddies other aspects of the narrative. The decision to excise the whole first third of the novel makes for a brisk 89-minute film, for sure. Now Maude (O’Casey) is solely depicted as being both alone and a loner, and the story becomes less about her being passed from parent to guardian and home to house in the late 19th century than a bluntly independent woman using her wits to triumph in increasingly dangerous circumstances. With the support of Breakout Pictures in Ireland and Embankment on board for sales, this may well travel to further festivals after its Galway bow before a commercial release at home. High-end streaming elsewhere would seem to beckon.

It’s the war of wits between Maude and her Uncle Silas (David Wilmot) which gives the film its sharpness. Dangerous one-upmanship and an escalation in the stakes result in some genuinely arresting drama, but there’s not much suspense and certainly no country house horror here, despite the decidedly Gothic settings. It could be argued that Maude and Silas are cut from the same cloth, in fact, making her a more ambiguous heroine than we’re used to. She’s certainly both clever and rude from the get-go, shrugging off the concerns of the trustees of her late father’s sprawling estate and agreeing to the guardianship of her Uncle Silas, who arrives at ‘Knowl’ with a rackety reputation, a laudanum habit and an entourage: Madame (Grainne Keenan), the supposed French governess, alongside Maude’s two cousins (Holly Sturton and Chris Walley).

Silas’s bad reputation rests on the mysterious death of a gambling acquaintance, which resulted in his estrangement from Maude’s late father. He claims his innocence, but he’s an arrogant man with a score to settle – and a niece he wants to marry to his own son, thereby claiming the estate he feels he was cheated out of. Despite her superior ways, Maude will soon discover just how precarious her position is and how tough Silas can be when it comes to raising the stakes.

Within this chess game, Maude’s position shifts and she is left with only her wits to save her. The production has opted to present this as a proto-feminist take, giving Maude some Herculean tasks to perform, given the circumstances, and with no allies to be seen. It also lessens the ambiguity around Silas and the revelation of his past, meaning the denouement lacks surprise. Still, it’s nice to see this rewriting of the conventions of one of the oldest genres, with prolonged and violent sexual threat both explicit and well-realised.

Shot on location in Ireland, Lies We Tell has, perhaps appropriately, a lushly-green look as Maude flees her clean-lined Georgian surroundings for respite in the forest, always clad in stiff, high-necked black taffeta and a richly commanding demeanour for one so young. It may be a lower-budget production, but it doesn’t betray that. In a crowded market for a period piece like this, O’Casey, great-granddaughter of Irish literary giant Sean and the star of TV’s Ridley Road, has the space to make her mark. And she has the grit of her character in driving the film over whatever bumps may come her way.

Production companies: Blue Ink Films

International sales: Embankment, info@embankmentfilms.com

Producer: Ruth Carter

Screenplay: Elisabeth Gooch, from the novel by Sheridan Le Fanu

Cinematographer: Eleanor Bowman

Editing: Weronika Kaminska

Production design: Caroline Hill

Main cast: Agnes O’Casey, David Wilmot, Holly Sturton, Chris Walley, Grainne Keenan

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