WARNING: Spoilers for The Lie ahead
In Mireille Enos) decide to weave a web of lies to protect their daughter, Kayla (Joey King), from the consequences of murdering her best friend. When Brittany surprisingly shows up at their house at the end of the film, they are dumbfounded because their lies have led them to commit a real murder of their own.
As divorced parents, Jay and Rebecca share custody of their daughter and take turns bringing her to and fro. The parents' relationship is portrayed as amicable, although there is a slight feeling of distrust between them. As such, this leads to miscommunications and misunderstandings. However, once they discover that their daughter has committed this heinous crime, they slowly merge back into a fully functioning, albeit still dysfunctional, parental unit. Together, they not only lie to the police about what happened with Kayla and Brittany, but they also fabricate an entirely new story to frame Brittany's father, Sam (her parents question her sanity.
Jay and Rebecca's lies inspire Kayla to lie as well, and she tells the police that Brittany's father is physically abusive to her so that they have more reason to investigate him. When Jay asks Kayla if it's true, she indicates that it's not and says, "I guess I learned from the best," implying that she means her parents. As the family seems to be getting back together, Kayla continues to revel in it, and Brittany's father becomes more and more frantic looking for his daughter. As they all deal with keeping their story straight, Jay learns that Kayla has been cutting herself ever since her parents' divorce, which Rebecca already knew about.
What Happens In The Lie's Ending
At the ending of The Lie, Jay and Rebecca's lies start to catch up with them, and instead of coming clean with the police, they double down on their mistakes and murder Brittany's father when he catches them trying to frame him further. The movie ends with Jay and Rebecca cleaning the car they used to kill Brittany's father, fully believing that they are now a family of murderers. They are solemnly washing the blood off the car when Brittany comes in asking to see Kayla. She seems to be in good spirits and reveals that her disappearance was just a game, one with which Kayla simply played along for fun.
Jay and Rebecca tell Brittany to go home, and she is clearly shaken by their morbid demeanor. Little does she know that they have killed her caring father. They go inside and approach Kayla, and based on their sullen appearance, she begins to confess. She tells them that at first it was just a game, designed to get Brittany away from her father to see her boyfriend. However, when Kayla began to see the unifying effect that the alleged murder had on her parents, she couldn't bring herself to tell them the truth. She tells them that she just needed a little more time before she could tell them, enough time for them to get back together for real—essentially a morbid version of The Parent Trap.
As police sirens get louder in the background, they all embrace one another, realizing how badly their decisions have turned out for them. Kayla was unhappy at school and at home, which is why she was cutting herself. Ultimately, it was her sadness that led her to lie to help her friend. Her lie became a horrifying truth for her parents, which caused them to lie in turn. By the time the police got involved, Kayla had already seen her parents lie to protect her, so her continued lies to protect what she saw as the reunification of her family were, in her eyes, justified by her parents' actions.
The Real Meaning Behind The Lie
The real meaning behind The Lie is quite straightforward, but it is not forced upon the audience. Instead, it is weaved into a believable tapestry of mundane sadness. As divorcees, Jay and Rebecca each care for their daughter in their own way. However, their distance from each other has resulted in their daughter becoming despondent. Rebecca knew that Kayla was cutting herself, but she clearly never told Jay. This is arguably the first lie (or withholding of the truth) of the film chronologically, other than Jay's implied infidelities. It's likely that if Jay had known Kayla was hurting herself, he would have done more to help her. He clearly loves her and they seem to have a close relationship, despite not living together. This is ed by the fact that he goes to extraordinary (albeit unethical) lengths to protect her once he finds out she is in trouble.
Rebecca's withholding of the truth essentially leads to Kayla's lying for her best friend; Kayla's lying leads to Jay's lie, which leads to more lying by Rebecca and Kayla. All of this ultimately leads to a wrongdoing that is much worse than a simple withholding of the truth, i.e. murder. In this way, the real meaning behind The Lie is that even the simplest lie might end up requiring an entire web of deceit, one that can only be maintained by the commission of greater and greater wrongdoings.
Additionally, the movie implies that lies committed with the intention of protecting someone are ultimately selfish, as they rarely ever spare the intended beneficiary of the lie from the pain and suffering that might be caused by the truth. Ultimately, the biggest lie of Welcome to the Blumhouse's The Lie was the one Jay and Rebecca told to themselves: that their child was well-adjusted and had the ability to be responsible for her own actions. Kayla was showing signs of depression and anxiety, which, it seems, Jay and Rebecca were content to ignore for unknown reasons. This dishonesty with themselves is what ultimately causes them to go to such irrational extremes to protect their daughter after their attempts at parenting turned out to be insufficient.
