When is it ever right to lie?
Mamere, Paul, and Jeremiah are all flying to America with their sister, Abital, to get a fresh start as the Sudanese war continues. The four siblings walked 700 miles when they were younger to get to Kenya's refugee camp. Upon arriving, Abital is forcefully sent to Boston by INS rules, while the other three are sent to Kansas City. The three boys are picked up by an employment agency worker named Carrie (Reese Witherspoon). As they get used to America, Mamere, Paul and Jeremiah hope to be with their sister again soon.
Witherspoon brings a solid amount of emotion and grit to the role of Carrie, but she is not the main character of this whole movie. In fact, her character doesn't show up until the second act. The foreign actors are the stand-outs (Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal and Kuoth Wiel), bringing such emotional sincerity and integrity to their roles. The screenplay by Margaret Nagle gives the movie an appropriate pace and the right amount of character development.
The cinematography by Ronald Plante is solid, especially in the early Africa scenes. The film's main positive messages of faith in the midst of dire circumstances and the importance of kindness and love are very strong. In fact, its nice to see some strong Christian representation in this movie as well. A few nice bits of humor here and there.
On the downside, a couple of unnecessary head-shaking scenes do mar the overall movie. In fact, a lot of the Americans here (with the exception of Carrie and her boss to a smaller extent) are written here to act kinda stupid or heartless. It would have been nice to have at least one other insightful American character. There's one other Christian character, but one disappointing scene shows her saying "Praise the Lord" when offered tequila and getting drunk.
The Good Lie is based on the true story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Before seeing this movie, I had no idea of their story. But, watching this, director Philippe Falardeau wisely gives a lot of time at the beginning to help viewers understand this conflict from the characters' point-of-view. He also gives (mostly) much-needed respect to their Christian faith and gives us an idea that God indeed protected Paul, Jeremiah, Mamere and Abital, and got them to safety.
Its rare for a mainstream movie to carry such strong, encouraging values of faith, yet also engage viewers emotionally from beginning to end. The acting is great. The story is well-written. And while its not very easy to watch (the characters' long journey at the beginning and difficulties in America can be heartbreaking and tear-jerking), the end result is emotionally-uplifting and awe-inspiring.
A few iffy scenes aside, The Good Lie is a well worth-watching drama that will make you happy, sad, and everything in-between.
Score: 8.3/10
Content Problems Families Should Be Aware Of:
Language: Infrequent, but a little on the strong side. Official count: The s-word (once), "g--d---" (once), "what the h---"? (twice), "oh my g--" (twice), "a--hole" (once).
Adult Content: One suggestive situation 35 minutes into the movie shows Carrie waking up (dressed) with her boyfriend dressed in only a towel. He kisses her and hands her her bra before she leaves. Fornication is implied. One of the boys finds the bra and wonders what it is.
Violence: In the opening 30 minutes, we see a few scenes of moderate violence. People run in and shoot guns at innocent people. Dead bodies float down a river and some are seen lying down dead all over a village. We hear a lot of screaming and see a village almost burned to the ground. Paul takes one of his brothers to the ground.
Alcohol/Drugs: Unknowingly, we witness Paul being lured by two co-workers into smoking an (unknown) drug. We see him act strange afterwards. Carrie drinks some beer. She offers tequila to a Christian lady, and they both become inebriated.
Other: In a gross-out moment, in order to survive, kids drink one of the boy's urine.
