True Stories

You can never have too much of a good thing. David Byrne’s True Stories takes this maxim and runs wildly over a busy high street, trousers and pants around its ankles for everyone to gawp at, into the realm of surreal absurdity.

You’re never really quite sure what the point of this film is. Is it Byrne’s commentary on post-war Americana? An idiosyncratic tale of Deep South gentrification? A character study of how different working-class people are perceived compared to governmental elitism?

Many interpretations can be taken from this 90-minute, loose-narrative film. But that would be over egging the pudding. To me, this film is a celebration of the mundane, the excitement of procrastination and a tribute to being a ‘normal’, ‘everyday’, ‘working’ American.

There is a sense of high patriotism throughout, but it also champions the voices of minorities, children and women. Satirical and ironic parody is used effectively, especially when we’re presented with a set piece about advertisement and how it adversely affects a viewer, couple with this upbeat song sung by the Talking Heads.

The actors breathe life into theses eccentric characters, giving them weird, unfiltered and ‘spunky’ performances which complement the best thing about the film, David Byrne’s auteur style. Like acclaimed concert film Stop Making Sense (1984) and the more recent American Utopia stage show (2019), the strongest thing about this piece of work is Byrne’s eccentric, unadulterated view of the world. This is his most provocative and raw commentary on society. It feels like David Lynch took a bunch of ecstasy and sat staring at daisies all day.

‘Postmodernism’ is a term thrown about relentlessly these days, but this genuinely feels like a piece way ahead of its time. It reminds me of The Truman Show, in a sense of the wider societal agenda that that film handles, mixed with a Wizard of Oz-style fantasy land where nothing is important – but where nothing is everything to the characters.

True Stories is a musical scored by Talking Heads. It’s hard not to talk about the brilliance of this band, yet it’s John Goodman’s rendition of their song ‘People Like Us’ that is the perfect personification of the film. It’s enough to make you cry tears through an ear-to-ear smile.

35 years since its release, True Stories still gives you the authority and the right to indulge in the ridiculousness of boring life. If that isn’t true escapism, I’m stuck.