Grace Millane case revisited in UK-NZ doco
The Lie (M, 92 mins) Directed by Helena Coan Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett *** ½
The Lie is a UK-New Zealand co-production, with the emphasis on the UK part of that designation. Film-maker Helena Coan is British, with her best-known documentary credit being a well-received film on Audrey Hepburn, which was acquired by Netflix.
Coan does solid and unobtrusive work here, assembling a selection of interviews, CCTV footage, police interview tapes and newsreel, to lay out a timeline of the murder of Grace Millane in December 2018 – and the arrest and trial of her murderer.
Grace met her murderer on Tinder and agreed to a drink. They drank a lot of alcohol on their date and then went to the hotel room the murderer was living in. Early the next morning, the murderer bought a suitcase and fitted Grace’s body into it. Later, he buried her in an unmarked grave, in West Auckland’s Waitākere Ranges.
No-one in New Zealand needs to be reminded of the trial – or its outcome. The defence argued this was a case of a consensual encounter that had gone horribly wrong, but the jury decided otherwise and the judge imposed a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
The Lie takes the viewer back through the trial and revisits a few of its more appalling revelations. If I ever knew that the murderer had gone on another Tinder date the day after the killing, when Grace’s body was still in the hotel room, then I had thankfully forgotten that detail.
The Lie makes an unignorable argument that the so-called “rough sex’’ defence in murder cases should be banned here and in the UK. That defence is “The Lie’’ of the title.
If the film’s existence in any way speeds up a ban, and helps to spare another family from having to sit through a trial in which that defence is deployed, then it will have achieved a great deal.
The Lie is in select cinemas nationwide.