True Stories

An invented Texas town called Virgil is preparing a Celebration of Specialness for its anniversary. The narrator, a man in a red cowboy hat, drives around introducing the residents: a woman who never gets out of bed, a man who arranges everything without leaving his house, a computer engineer looking for a wife. It is David Byrne's only film as director, and most of the characters came out of the tabloids sold at supermarket checkouts. He relays them without exaggeration and without mockery, and that stance is the entire tone of the film. The strange people are not the joke; strangeness is simply accepted. The songs are Talking Heads songs, though in the film they are mostly performed by the actors. John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz and Spalding Gray are in the cast. Its flaw is that there is almost no story, the sections are loosely joined, and the deadpan distance reads as cold to some viewers. Who it is for: people who like strange American films of the 1980s and Talking Heads. Who it is not for: anyone looking for narrative.