There may not be a better film this year about adult sibling jostling, rivalry and affection than Tom Berninger’s extraordinary Mistaken For Strangers. The fact that it’s also a meta-documentary about life on the road with the ascendant indie rock group The National, whose lead singer Matt Berninger is Tom’s older brother, is completely incidental. This is an engaging work of many colors, at once funny and heart-piercing, that taps into the rich and often conflicting veins of feeling that only loved ones can elicit.
The younger Berninger is a Cincinnati roustabout — a sensitive, wayward creative soul and aspiring indie horror director who comes off a bit like a cross between Feast director John Gulager and Mark Borchardt, the subject of Chris Smith’s American Movie. When The National — a quintet made up of two other sets of brothers, plus Matt Berninger — prepares to go out on tour, they hire Tom as a roadie, affording him his first chance at international travel. Tom brings along his cameras, filming the entire experience, and in the process often ignoring his official job duties. Tension, arguments, reflection and self-discovery ensues.
Mistaken For Strangers has a multitude of ideas, emotions and themes — enough for about a half dozen different films. In its own facile way, it’s a wry rock ‘n’ roll tour document, a peek behind the curtain of a brooding-cool critics’ darling whose hard work and doggedness have finally paid off with commercial punch-through, and the attendant dressing room catering riders that entails. Of course, it’s refracted chiefly through the prism of the 34-year-old Tom, whose awkward questions (“Does the motion of the tour bus cause weird dreams?” and “Do you have a wallet when you’re onstage?”) recall the late Chris Farley’s famous Saturday Night Live talk show sketch, where his nervousness around whatever celebrity guest habitually got the better of him.
The film is also about fraternity, obviously, but all the component elements of sibling relationships as well. There’s love, exasperation, shame, jealousy, pride and so much more. And it’s all captured in such a disarming, entertaining style that’s steadfast and true to the commingled nature of those feelings. (“Am I fired?” asks Tom at one point. “Technically, yes, but don’t put it through that filter,” replies Matt.) Finally, Mistaken For Strangers is about the ethereal nature of creativity and the weight of depression too, summoning up memories of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which is both a good and bittersweet thing, for anyone who’s seen Jeff Feuerzeig’s superb 2006 documentary.
It’s a completely different film than Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, of course, but part of the miracle of Mistaken For Strangers lies in the amazingly instinctive editing by a party so tied up and personally invested in the knotty familial relationships on display, just as in that movie. The younger Berninger crafts a portrait of himself that is knowingly unflattering in some respects, but also enormously sympathetic. Taut and moving, Mistaken For Strangers does right by the complexity of all of its characters’ feelings, its knowing self-commentary (at one point Tom talks about filming himself crying before actually showing that footage) never dipping into conceited self-satisfaction. One needn’t know or care a whit about The National to enjoy this stirring film, indisputably one of the year’s best, nonfiction or otherwise. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. In addition to its theatrical engagements, Mistaken For Strangers is also available on VOD platforms. For more information, click here to visit its website. (Starz Digital Media/Abramorama, unrated, 74 mintues)
Daily Archives: April 9, 2014
Cavemen
Lest one think that all the playboy comedies tangentially inspired by 1996’s Swingers, about entertainment industry aspirants and the “beautiful babies” of which they’re in hot pursuit, had finally dried up, witness Cavemen, a blockheaded, sigh-inducing retread that evinces neither any particular originality nor freshness of telling.
Written and directed by Herschel Faber, Cavemen unfolds in mostly downtown Los Angeles, where would-be screenwriter Dean (Skylar Astin) lives in a loft with his three best friends: Jay (Chad Michael Murray), Pete (Kenny Wormald) and Andre (Dayo Okeniyi). Dean is a sensitive mope, but still has a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with Sara (Megan Stevenson), who likes things that way. Pete has an on-again-off-again girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Jane Cooper), but the other two guys are bar scene prowlers who enjoy holding forth with theories on sex and dating and generally lecturing Dean about getting his head out of his ass and enjoying the single life.
Dean, though, pines for something a bit more substantive. And naturally, wouldn’t you know it, there’s also a girl he went on one date with in college, Tess (Camilla Belle), who works with both Dean and Jay. Ergo, much awkward and unconvincing sidestepping of latent attraction ensues, prior to the requisite scene of running, flowers in hand, to intercept a departing taxi.
Films which take writers as their central characters always exist on a somewhat slippery slope, because they run the risk of either unduly venerating the creative process or coming across as indulgent. Cavemen, though, is just lazy, and stocked with female characters so offensively undersketched that Gloria Allred might well want to consider legal action. Faber, making his directorial debut, most likely fancies Dean as some sort of stand-in — a fact which makes the utter lack of convincing depth to his characterization all the more perplexing. Faber has an agent (Jason Patric) magically drop into Dean’s life to confirm his talent to viewers, but doesn’t provide any compelling sense of who he really is as a writer or a person, except by way of the arc that experiencing requited love will magically provide the missing piece for Dean’s screenplay.
The rest of Faber’s screenplay, meanwhile, simply oscillates between wild derivativeness and plodding contrivance. When not cycling through inane nudge-nudge banter, Faber throws in phony romantic impediments and scenes in which Dean gleans wisdom through his nine-year-old nephew. Left to play only lurching, scene-specific motivations, the actors all fall back on predictably declamatory choices. If there’s any bright spot at all, it’s in Cavemen‘s soundtrack — inclusive of Mathclub, Names of Stars, Golden State and more — which manifests more insightful feeling than anything in Faber’s script.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, Cavemen comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles. Apart from chapter stops and a clutch of trailers for other Well Go USA Entertainment titles, however, there are no supplemental bonus features herein, further denting any collectible value for those outside of diehard fans of the genre, or some of the actors. Nevertheless, to purchase the DVD via Half, click here; to purchase via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) D (Disc)