SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

mmunier Sorry not much of a summary, but if you're reading this you'd know the summary anyway. I saw this in a plane coming back home and miraculously saw the end as the plane touched the tarmac! The story also touched my inner self tarmac and I went through a lot of emotions - Trying to associate myself with such a situation was simply futile, just like the dedicated American workers who could just not imagines what these refugees had been through. Imagine isn't even close as similar situations can't be imagined in their reality. Yes we can write about them, have our own feelings and reactions about them. But we can't have the same trauma about them. Like many other situations it needs to be lived, and perhaps it's a good thing as one would not want to have to live all the distressing situations that may affect us. The movie delves into it when it shows characters re-living their ordeal in their thoughts and also the blank or incredulous faces of those who hear about it from the would be 'horses mouth'. I remember a long time ago watching at the cinema Private Ryan. Comfortably seated very close to the screen looking at the beach where I was bombarded with close up of many soldiers 'erased' for ever by machine guns and other weapons.... I guess some are affected by such scenes in a positive and active way but I'm pretty sure the majority of us live the cinema to go on about our own life. "hey it was a good movie, wasn't it". Yes for me I liked this story very much and did not need to know it was inspired by real events...Reality is all around us every day, like my recent trip to Tokyo looking at tarpaulin covering stuff under some bridge, then being told that people were trying to live underneath! I read one of the early comments that recommends to take the youngsters with you to see this movies...Youngsters play games where one shoots 'peoples' with super machine guns, or dismember them with powerful chainsaws and other form of weapons for entertainment! What difference would it make to them. But what difference did it make to me? "life is a lottery" is my deduction.

kosmasp Having priorities is one thing, not questioning things and taking them for granted something different. And it's not like you're bad if you don't think about things. It's just the way it is. That's why an outside "perspective" sometimes is helpful (and hurtful, depending on the situation and your willingness to empathize for others of course) to re-evaluate things.Why am I writing this here? Because people who're not getting things we have accepted as normal, will question things we're doing. They may seem logical (market wise and financial wise), but will seem incredible crazy to others. But it's not just here to tell that story. It's actually a movie about people trying to get a new/fresh start away from home and the trials and stipulations they have to overcome. Based on real life this will either catch and grip you or might be something you don't want/like to watch. It's definitely done in a great way, with more than solid performances

Bryan Kluger Reese Witherspoon has had quite the year in 2014. She will probably be nominated for an Oscar for her work in 'Wild', but earlier this year, she starred in yet another film based on a true story called 'The Good Lie', which focused on the orphaned Sudanese children from South Africa, known as the Lost Boys, who came to America to start over and have a chance at a good life. Director Philippe Falardeau (who hasn't done much) directed from a script from Margaret Nagle (Boardwalk Empire) this sweet film that is mostly enjoyable, but never quite hikes over that mountain.Maybe the reason is that this film is full of those usual emotional big moments that are full of cheese that you can't help but laugh when you should be shedding a tear. And this happens so often that it becomes more of a problem rather than an emotional journey. If producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard were on-set producers through the whole shoot, I'm sure things would have been handled differently. 'The Good Lie' follows four friends, Mamere (Arnold Oceng), Paul (Emmanuel Jal), Abital (Kuoth Wiel), and Jeremiah (Ger Duany), who were dealt a very bad hand growing up in their Sudanese village.During the turmoil and war over there, these four kids were forced out of their homes along with thousands of other kids to walk thousands of miles in search of another home without the help from adults. These kids ended up in a refugee camp, which was not so good to put it lightly. While there for a a number years, they grew up, however America stepped in and allowed for some of these lost people to come to America to have a better life. Three of the four kids were all located to Kansas City, although the movie was shot in Atlanta, where Carrie (Reese Witherspoon), a fiery young woman starts to look after and help these "lost boys" transition into the American life.From here, Witherspoon takes center stage as she struggles with dealing with this new aspect of her life. While she seems bothered at first by these four guys, the usual cheesy melodramatic plot points turn her into the woman with the heart of gold. It's just something that we've seen done a million times before, and here, it has a high cheese factor in certain moments. That being said, there are some great characters with some very funny moments throughout. And even though the story has more than enough big dramatic emotional moments that stink of cheese, for the most part, the film is satisfying to a certain degree.The sudanese actors are all excellent here and do a good job showing the emotional stress their characters went through and what their struggling with by being in America and away from their homeland. Witherspoon also turns in a great performance, but it seems a tiny bit over-the-top. And Corey Stoll (House of Cards) steals every scene he's in. 'The Good Lie' isn't the most powerful film to tell this story we've seen before, but it should satisfy the family friendly crowd.

skanz This film did not have a theatre release here in my country, it came out on DVD today. I had seen the trailer and was looking forward to it. I had read several comments criticising the film for being about white people heroically and selflessly saving the black people. Even the IMDb web page says "their encounter with an employment agency counsellor forever changes all of their lives." Reese Witherspoon is the star attraction so people will notice the film, but she is not the main character of the story, her's is a supporting role, which she does well. If anything the encounter with the Sudanese refugees changes her character's life forever. On an emotional level the film is deeply affecting. The employment agency agent or the charity representative would have had more depth and connection if one or the other was played by an American woman of African descent. There is a tribal link between white Americans and Sudanese people but it is so far back as to be far beyond the longest oral tradition. I guess it was contrast rather than convergence the film maker wanted- their choice.The brutality of the war in Sudan is not graphically portrayed as violence often is in modern films. Graphic violence has a tendency to shut down the viewers empathy- a defensive measure I suppose. Without plastic guts and synthetic gore to be shocked at and to immunise us from the pain of others, the viewer starts to care about the family and their ordeal. I started seriously leaking water at one point, and kept springing leaks at numerous points thereafter. As a male, I do this very very rarely, and watching films, at most brim a bit, I never ever suffer rivulets down cheeks until now. I needed tissues. Tissues! The fish out of water comedy was gentle and the characters were not made out as ignorant or gullible, but eager and quick to learn. What they have to learn from first world culture is superficial however, just like the culture. More important is what they have to teach us first worlders. But to learn first you have to acknowledge there is something you can learn from uneducated poor people from a third world country. I think the film makers did just that.