THE GOOD LIE directed by Philippe Falardeau, written by Margaret Nagle, with Reese Witherspoon, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany and Emmanuel Jal. A Warner Bros. release. Some subtitles. 110 minutes. Opens Friday (October 3). For venues and times, see Movies.
The Good Lie is not the first time Philippe Falardeau has told a story about Sudan. The Quebec filmmaker went to that country in 1994, as a cameraman on the NFB documentary Waiting.
“It was about people waiting for food to be distributed by the UN,” he says during a TIFF press day. “You would get these food drops from the air, and people were collecting the food and piling the bags but couldn’t give it to the population because they had to wait for the logisticians from the UN. So people were just standing there, waiting with their bowls for days, staring at the food. You wait for your food and it’s right in front of you.”
Military action in the form of “this loose-cannon general coming to steal the food” caused the crew to be evacuated twice.
“I remember in the plane feeling very guilty leaving the place,” Falardeau says.
When he read the script for The Good Lie, he felt he had to make it out of a sense of responsibility toward the Sudanese.
The film stars Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany and Emmanuel Jal as three “lost boys” of Sudan, survivors of a horrific civil war who’ve been brought to America as part of an outreach program.
The tale of new immigrants adjusting to the West resonated with Falardeau, who’d explored similar themes in his Oscar-nominated breakout Monsieur Lazhar – but this one was a little different. Falardeau didn’t write The Good Lie or develop the project in Quebec he was working with an American studio and its attendant producers.
“Every time I had some sort of artistic idea, it had to be discussed,” he laughs. “That’s the main difference. Making a film in Quebec, I also discuss my artistic ideas with my producers, but we’ve known each other for 12 or 15 years already.”
Of course, the advantage to working with Hollywood is that you get its resources as well as its production structure – and that led to casting Reese Witherspoon as the woman with whom the lost boys forge an unlikely friendship.
“I needed an actress who could portray this girl from Kansas City, and she certainly had this Southern touch,” he says. “And I needed an actress who could play this character who’s kind of edgy in the beginning but transforms into a luminous person who connects with these immigrants – and she has that range. And when she came on board the film was pre-sold in, like, 50 countries before a single shot was made, and that meant we were going to be able to make it.”
Having Witherspoon in his film also helps a great deal in terms of marketing The Good Lie, Falardeau admits, even if she does play a supporting part.
“She understood her role in the film,” Falardeau says, laughing. “Warner Bros. doesn’t. She’s on the poster.”
Interview Clips
Philippe Falardeau on wanting to screen the film for a Sudanese audience:
Falardeau on how he handled the violence of the Sudanese civil war and the real horrors his characters experienced:
Falardeau on how he copes with the stress of filmmaking:
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
