Synopsis
Mistaken for Strangers follows The National on its biggest tour to date. Newbie roadie Tom (lead singer Matt Berninger’s younger brother) is a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast, and can't help but put his own spin on the experience. Inevitably, Tom’s moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates some drama for the band on the road. The film is a hilarious and touching look at two very different brothers, and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.
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Cast
- Matt BerningerSelf
- Tom BerningerSelf
- Aaron DessnerSelf
- Bryce DessnerSelf
- Bryan DevendorfSelf
- Scott DevendorfSelf
- Carin BesserSelf
- Brandon ReidSelf
- Barack ObamaSelf
- Werner HerzogSelf (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 91
The Playlist
With its rock doc trappings, it’s impossible to ignore that Mistaken For Strangers delivers on that front, with thrilling and candid on-stage footage that allows the band’s music to come alive: if you weren’t a fan before, you will be after the film. - 91
Entertainment Weekly
The finest rock doc since "Anvil: The Story of Anvil." Matt Berninger, lead singer of the National, is a 40ish indie-rock star who carries himself like a hip lawyer. - 88
New York Post
Not since “American Movie” has there been such an entertainingly clumsy, warts-and-all documentary about making a movie, this time courtesy of Cincinnati filmmaker Tom Berninger. - 83
The A.V. Club
Mistaken For Strangers is as much a film about its director as it is about The National, which may qualify it as an entirely new kind of rock doc. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Less a rock-doc than a surprisingly affecting look at sibling dynamics in a creative family where one brother is vastly more successful than the other. - 70
Variety
Mistaken for Strangers, a documentary about indie group the National, comes off like an exercise in self-deprecation. As much a diary film as a rockumentary, it almost compulsively veers away from its ostensible subject. - 70
The Dissolve
Mistaken For Strangers, which covers Tom’s time with the band and his subsequent attempts to piece together a movie about that time, is a sweet, funny, and sad film, but also an exceedingly odd one. - 60
Time Out
The brotherly-love epiphany to which the film builds does effectively pluck the heartstrings, but there’s a lingering sense that we’re being had.
