Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Slow
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- witty
- warm
- melancholic
- beach vacation viewing
- group movie night
What critics said
Critics found the ensemble emotionally engaging and often enjoyable, but divided over the film's excessive length, unsubtle melodrama, predictable turns, and reliance on music to underline emotion.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Max, Véro, Marie, Vincent, and Eric maintain social roles and polite evasions until the group holiday makes their hidden conflicts harder to contain.
The beach house, vacation rituals, boat, and communal meals create a pleasurable surface against which the friends' anxieties and grievances become increasingly visible.
Ludo's serious accident occurs before the annual trip, yet the friends proceed toward their anticipated vacation as emotional reactions accumulate beneath the festivities.
The vacation forces the protagonists to lift the small veils covering what bothers and upsets them, culminating in more candid recognition of their relationships.
Films like Little White Lies, and why
The Big Chill
shared ensemble friendship drama, emotional revelations, and vacation-house setting
Summer Hours
shared sunlit coastal setting, adult relationship tensions, and bittersweet group dynamics
A Family Affair
shared intimate ensemble structure, romantic complications, and comic-drama treatment of personal dishonesty
Movie Details
- Director
- Guillaume Canet
- Release Date
- 2010-10-20
- Runtime
- 154 min
- Rating
- 7.1 / 10 (1656)
Cast
- François Cluzet
- Marion Cotillard
- Benoît Magimel
- Gilles Lellouche
- Jean Dujardin
- Valérie Bonneton
- Joël Dupuch
- Laurent Lafitte
- Pascale Arbillot
- Anne Marivin
Common questions
- What is Little White Lies about?
- A sunlit French friendship comedy-drama turns an annual beach-house holiday into an uneasy reckoning with grief, desire, and years of carefully maintained pretenses.
- What is Little White Lies like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Little White Lies as slow, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Little White Lies violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Little White Lies as mild.
- What did critics think of Little White Lies?
- Critics found the ensemble emotionally engaging and often enjoyable, but divided over the film's excessive length, unsubtle melodrama, predictable turns, and reliance on music to underline emotion.
- Which films are like Little White Lies?
- Films with a similar feel include The Big Chill, Summer Hours, and A Family Affair.
- How long is Little White Lies?
- Little White Lies runs 154 minutes.
