The
title of the noir film L.I.E. stands for Long
Island Expressway, but the story is about the etiology of
prostitution among white male teenagers, a variation on the
theme of The Ice Storm (1997) and similar critiques
of the emptiness of a sterile suburbia of affluent homes.
Howie Blitzer (played by Paul Franklin Dano) is a skinny fifteen-year-older
whose mother died on the LIE. One week after his mother dies,
his father Marty (played by Bruce Altman) brings home women
for sex, but Howie is turned off as he listens to the moans
and groans, since he is devastated by the loss of his mother,
and his father obviously has little interest in him. Howie
hangs out with Gary Terrio (played by Billy Kay), who sometimes
hustles for bread at an LIE rest stop "meat rack"
along with other teenage boys, presumably also from broken
homes. Gary wants to have sex with Howie but instead gets
him to cut school quite often in order to commit acts of petty
theft by breaking and entering affluent homes when both parents
are away at work; they are joined by two friends, also hustlers.
During one of the escapades, they enter the basement of the
home of former marine, Big John Harrigan (played by Brian
Cox), whose fifty-fifth birthday celebration is in progress,
revealing then and later that he is still a mama’s boy.
Sexually interested in boys in their late teens, he lives
as the "daddy" of post-pubescent teenage Scott (played
by Tony Donnelly). His license plate BJ clearly indicates
his preferred pastime. When Gary tells Big John that Howie
is the thief who took two of his pistols, he sees a beautiful
boy to seduce rather than punish for the misdeed. Although
Gary invites Howie to leave for California, presumably to
hustle together where cruising can take place in year-round
sunshine, Howie remains. After his best friend leaves, a further
void in friendships occurs when his father is arrested and
jailed for faulty construction in a building project that
caused the deaths of several residents. Big John then provides
temporary room and board for Howie, doubtless hoping that
Howie will ultimately initiate sex but preferring to play
a paternalistic to a predatory role. However, Big John tells
his existing kept boy, Scott, to move to a motel while he
provides accommodation to Howie. However, on the next day,
when Big John cruises the meat rack, Scott drives by and shoots
a fatal bullet into his heart. At the end of the film we are
left to ponder the fate of Howie, who tightropewalks on a
railing on a bridge over the LIE, seemingly unconcerned whether
he will plunge to his death through a simple misstep. Director
Michael Cuesta does not sugarcoat the semiautobiographical
story of his childhood; he humanizes a pedophile, but stops
short of a tragic ending for Howie. MH
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