THE PLOT THUS FAR:
Five years in the making, We Always Lie To Strangers is a story of family, community, music and tradition set against the backdrop of Branson, Missouri, one of the biggest tourist destinations in America. A remote Ozark Mountain town of just 10,500, Branson hosts more than 7.5 million tourists a year and generates nearly 3 billion dollars in annual tourism revenue. At the heart of Branson’s appeal is the more than 100 staged music shows that earned the town the moniker of “the live music capital of the world”. These shows are well known for their “traditional, family” style of entertainment – no cussing, no nudity, no gambling, healthy doses of gospel and respect for veterans – and crowds from around the country, and particularly from the American Midwest, flock to Branson for this “return to old fashioned values”. Directors AJ Schnack and David Wilson and Producer Nathan Truesdell spent the past five years documenting Branson and profiling four families who live and perform there. They found, as one of their subjects noted, that “Branson seems very simplistic on the outside, like you could paint it in a dozen sentences. I think you ll find the surface truth doesn t match the actuality.” Set against the backdrop of a country dealing with economic uncertainty and changes in attitudes on social issues, these four families form a composite both of Branson and of contemporary America.
WHAT WE THOUGHT:
“We Always Lie to Strangers” is an amazing documentary on how places like Branson, Missouri build their own communities. While middle Americans are ditching vacation hotspots due to the downturned economy, the same class of performers are struggling to survive in the Heartland. Whether it’s a single mother or a gay couple, these people want to keep living their dreams. Unfortunately, the prejudices of others and grim financial outlook hurts their future. All four families featured have their own truth of Branson and nobody’s wrong.
I’m thrilled to have been surprised by the movie. I kept expecting a certain kind of documentary, but what I got was a fascinating character study. A lot of people from the coasts tend to think that Branson is the big happening hotspot for Middle America. Honestly, it’s weird to us too. The film never kills that weird allure, but you do get to see how the microcosm is created.
RELEASE DATE: 06/03/2014