The Good Lie and The Lost Boys: A True Story

On Friday, October 3, the new Warner Brothers film, The Good Lie, will open in 40 cities across the United States. If you are lucky enough to be in one of those cities, I do hope that you will go see this film, starring Reese Witherspoon as Carrie Davis, and Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, and Nyakuouth Wiel as the Sudanese young people who enter her life, right away, opening weekend!

The film is the story of three fictional Lost Boys from Sudan. The boys in The Good Lie are fictional characters, but their story is not fictional.  The story of Mamere (Oceng), Jeremiah (Duany), and Paul (Jal), along with Lost Girl sister, Abital (Wiel), is the true story of some 26,000 children from Bahr al Ghazal, Southern Sudan.

The Good Lie follows them from 1987, when the Government of Sudan-sponsored jihad against their villages forces them to flee from their homes, through their 400 mile trek-on-foot to find safety in Ethiopia. It finds them again in the dusty Kenyan refugee camp where they end up after having to once again flee Ethiopia in 1991 upon the downfall of Mengistu. And it takes them, now as young adults, on their journey to the United States in 2000.

You see, as John Prendergast of Enough Project said this week, “The success of this opening weekend will determine how widespread the national release is on the 24th. Each ticket sold demonstrates to the film industry the interest audiences have in seeing more socially important films.” You can have a role in making sure that this wonderful film opens all across the country on October 24. The Enough Project provides a list of the 40 cities where The Good Lie will open on Friday.

In my next blog post I will give you 10 reasons why you should see The Good Lie (and see it opening weekend)!