Mistaken For Strangers Review

Director: Tom Berninger

Cast: Matt Berninger, Tom Berninger, Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, Scott Devendorf

Running Time: 75 minutes

Certificate: E

Synopsis: Tom Berninger, the much less successful younger brother of Matt Berninger (lead singer of The National) is going on tour with his brother and his band to work as a roadie. Instead, Tom takes the opportunity to party like a rock star, making mistakes like a brother hired through nepotism and making a documentary about the tour in the process.

Despite not officially being a documentary about The National, MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS still does a great job of promoting the band and their tour. Recently, The National appeared on The Mindy Project, and that, along with this documentary and even naming the film after a The National song has given the band great exposure.

As mentioned, The National themselves are not the focus of the documentary, but it still shows the commitment of the band members to each other, their music and their fans over the past decade. MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS covers momentary depression, brotherhood, family, and the definition of success vs failure, with a large part dedicated to the idea of documentary making and how to complete anything in life.

Director, Tom, serves as a brother to lead singer Matt and also as the main subject of the documentary. His self-loving moments where he does nothing but shoot himself dancing or miming are hilarious and very reminiscent of a classic Will Ferrell character. He is a character who is almost too good to be true, and his idiocy is difficult to believe at times. Throughout the entire film, Tom is presented as a screw up and someone who can’t do anything right. This is reflected in some seriously shaky recordings, crying and messed up job tasks, however he pulls through towards the end and brings together all of his seemingly random scenes infused with dumb yet somehow profound questions like, “Do you take your I.D. with you on stage?” and, “Do you get tired when you’re on stage?” brilliantly with some magical editing. A clever trick of MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS is the contrasts and subtle yet powerful interjections of comments, confused looks and snickering at Tom’s childishness.

Considering the amazing raw footage, it’s quite admirable that the documentary got approved by those who are involved seeing as it doesn’t put the band in a necessarily positive light. However, it is very evident that Matt will do anything to help his brother and that includes having his anger issues dissected in a documentary doing the rounds at film festivals. Besides giving an insight into the touring world of rock stars, MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS is also inspiring, enlightening and hilariously entertaining and prevails as absolute must-see.

[usr=5]  MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS is staging a Live Q&A across the country this June 14th. For full information head here to Dogwoof. 

The film is released across the UK and Europe on June 27th.

MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS was originally reviewed at the London Film Festival.  For all of our coverage from LFF head here.