The Good Lie - Der Preis der Freiheit (2014)

A group of Sudanese refugees given the chance to resettle in America arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, where their encounter with an employment agency counselor forever changes all of their lives.

Director:

Philippe Falardeau

Writer:

Margaret Nagle

Stars:

Reese Witherspoon, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Reese Witherspoon	...	Carrie
Arnold Oceng	...	Mamere
Ger Duany	...	Jeremiah
Emmanuel Jal	...	Paul
Corey Stoll	...	Jack
Kuoth Wiel	...	Abital
Femi Oguns	...	Theo
Sarah Baker	...	Pamela
Lindsey Garrett	...	Jenny
Peterdeng Mongok	...	Young Mamere
Okwar Jale	...	Young Theo
Thon Kueth	...	Young Jeremiah
Deng Ajuet	...	Young Paul
Keji Jale	...	Young Abital
David Madingi	...	Young Gabriel

Storyline

Four Sudanese children are orphaned after their village is massacred in the Second Sudanese Civil War. Consequently, they make an arduous and dangerous trek through the plains, enduring hardship, death and sacrifice all the way until they reach safety in a refugee camp in Kenya. Years later, these youths are among 3600 selected for resettlement in America, only to have the one girl among them sent to Boston, while the three boys must to make a new life in Kansas City. Together, these young men must adjust to an alien culture even as the emotional baggage of their past haunts them. However, these newcomers, and their new friends like employment counselor Carrie Davis, strive to understand each other in this new home, as they make peace with their histories in a challenge that will change all their lives.

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Plot Keywords:

refugee | refugee camp | kansas city | kenya | resettlement | 

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Taglines:

Miracles are made by people who refuse to stop believing.

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence, brief strong language and drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

Kenya India USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 November 2014 (Kenya)

Also Known As:

The Good Lie - Der Preis der Freiheit

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$841,422 (USA) (3 October 2014)

Gross:

$2,716,989 (USA) (2 January 2015)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Alcon Entertainment, Black Label Media, Blue Sky Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Datasat Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Emmanuel Jal, the actor who plays Paul, describes his real child-soldier atrocities in the Michael Portillo documentary "How Violent Are You" - part of the BBC's Horizon series.

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Goofs

When the refugees first arrive in Kansas City and mention needing to meet an escort by the baggage claim, they descend an escalator. MCI (Kansas City's primary airport) does not have a lower level baggage claim. The airport is three, single-level terminals all with various baggage claims on the same level.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Title Card: In 1983, a brutal civil war broke out in Sudan between the North and the South over religion and resources, leaving villages destroyed by northern government armies and militia.
Title Card: By 1987, thousands of orphaned children began to flee on foot across sub-Saharan Africa, walking as many as thousands of miles to Ethiopia and then Kenya. Thirteen years later, 3600 refugees would be relocated to the U.S.A. They were known simply as "The Lost Boys of Sudan."
Title Card: This film is inspired by their ...

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Connections

Referenced in The Cinema Snob: Can't Stop the Music (2014)

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Soundtracks

Ci Mai Kua Mai
Written by Kang JJ

User Reviews

A Hollywood twist on sobering real-life events, but one with enough depth to inform as well as entertain.

As children, many of us were taught that lying is bad - that, in any given situation, it's always better to be honest. Of course, growing up has shown us that this childhood dictum doesn't always hold true. As The Good Lie takes pains to explain, there are moments when a lie has positive consequences that outweigh the telling of it. In fact, there's just such a lie embedded in the marketing campaign for Philippe Falardeau's earnest if occasionally overwrought film: that Reese Witherspoon is the star and central character of the movie. Witherspoon's name and pretty face on the poster will, of course, bring in audiences, but she's really not the main attraction here. Instead, her top billing for the film will bring attention to the far worthier and more riveting story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, refugees to America from a land brutally torn apart by civil war.

The lives of the children of Sudan are fraught with dangers and horrors

• before the age of twelve, they endure war, famine, death and

deprivation, with only the faint prospect of leaving their country to start afresh somewhere new. Mamere (Arnold Oceng), with his sister Abital (Kuoth Wiel) and brothers-in-arms Jeremiah (Ger Duany) and Paul (Emmanuel Jal), gets that chance - but only after losing too much of his innocence and blood to a battle he should never have had to fight. The promise of a new home and freedom, however, come neither freely nor easily. Mamere is helpless to prevent the bureaucracy of the system from taking his sister to another state in America, and culture shock lingers in every corner and around every turn.

It's easy to see why Falardeau was asked to make his English- language debut with The Good Lie. His previous effort, the bittersweet Monsieur Lazhar, dealt impressively with issues of displacement, loss and identity, and won him an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in the process. Falardeau displays the same sensitivity with the quartet at the heart of his latest film, giving each character a personality and heart beyond the labels and paperwork more easily affixed to them. He understands the irony facing these young men: the notion that they've lived through guns and hunger, only to be flummoxed by bureaucrats and capitalism.

The film could easily have tipped over into a self-congratulatory farce, painting Carrie Davis (Witherspoon) - the boys' employment agent

• as the pretty white-girl saviour of these savages from the third

world. But Falardeau instead teases out the myriad ways in which their new lives are better, but also possibly worse than, what they left behind. He finds these tragic contradictions in the wide-eyed manner in which they respond to their new homeland: the way Jeremiah revolts at the casual, easy wastage of produce in the supermarket where he stocks the shelves, and the manner in which these boys simply cannot believe that Carrie is genuinely taking care of herself with neither father, husband, brother nor son on hand.

Coupled with the very good work done by Falardeau's young cast (especially Oceng and Wiel), it becomes almost easy to overlook The Good Lie's relatively predictable script by Margaret Nagle. There are a few hard-hitting moments, particularly when Mamere struggles beneath the weight of guilt that comes with being alive because others close to him have died, but no real surprises. It's no doubt a film that deals with painful, difficult issues and politics, but it does so in such an earnest way that it winds up feeling safe and comfortable. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it does mean that the fairly optimistic fiction of the film winds up being all too easily separated from the far gloomier facts of the matter.

That being said, if what you'd prefer is a grittier, less starry- eyed version of events, there are documentaries - such as Lost Boys Of Sudan

• which touch on the same issues and history with less of the Hollywood

gloss and sparkle. Anyone watching The Good Lie should expect a sweeter, more predictable story, albeit one which also manages to find the sad, sobering truth to the prejudices and politics faced by these young men and women everyday.