The sexually explicit 2005 movie that betrayed Kevin Bacon: “It is the mark of a leper”
Having made his peace with the fact that he’s not the guy who convinces audiences to come to the theatre, Kevin Bacon would like it if the powers-that-be at least made his movies available to a wide audience.
The actor has been in several films that ruffled feathers with the ratings board and certain organisations fond of pearl-clutching, whether it was playing a convicted child molester in The Woodsman, a sadistic prison officer in Sleepers, or lending support in the raunchy erotic thriller, Wild Things.
One thing that those three pictures had in common was that they were all rated R by the MPAA before being sent to cinemas, but 2005’s Where the Truth Lies didn’t have the same luxury. Instead, it was given the kiss of death by the ratings board, which refused to back down from its initial verdict of an NC-17.
That instantly eliminates a huge part of the target audience, and many cinemas refuse to even screen NC-17 fare, so it’s no surprise that the $25million period drama was declared dead on arrival. The reviews weren’t great, to be fair, but Bacon’s issues had nothing to do with the content, but with the people in charge.
“I don’t get it,” he opined at the time of its release. “When I see films that are extremely violent, extremely objectionable, sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more clothes on.” In fact, he even suggested that homophobia may have been a factor.
Where the Truth Lies, which unfolds in 1957 and 1972, with a journalist in the latter timeline investigating the mystery of a woman found dead in the hotel room of Bacon and Colin Firth’s comedy duo in the former, features both a threesome and graphic depictions of lesbian sex. However, it was the homosexual implications between the two male leads that made Bacon think the MPAA had gotten cold feet.
Writer and director Atom Egoyan had several cuts rejected, so he went to a board of appeals, which was supposed to number ten people. Instead, there were 12 present, and when the filmmaker asked who they were, Bacon shared that he was told they were “members of the clergy,” or, to be more specific, “A Catholic priest and an Episcopalian minister, I think.”
“If that scene didn’t end with a homosexual act, would the ratings board have given us an NC-17?” he wondered. “I don’t know. I can’t answer that because I’m not behind closed doors.” Egoyan, meanwhile, was more definitive, implying that homophobia was to blame, because “otherwise, it makes no sense.”
While the rating did generate some publicity in the short-term, it wasn’t going to help Where the Truth Lies when it did make it onto a limited number of screens. As far as producer Robert Lantos was concerned with the NC-17 rating, “It is the mark of a leper,” and in cinematic terms, he’s not wrong.
