Movie Review: Three Identical Strangers
Three Identical Strangers **** / *****
Directed by: Tim Wardle.
Documentaries were made for stories like the one Three Identical Strangers tells – stories that are so absurd, that if you saw them in a dramatic film, you wouldn’t believe a frame of. But, of course, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction – and the story this movie tells is one of those cases. When the film opens, you think you’re going to see something cheerful and upbeat – one of those so strange it must be true stories. But darkness starts to creep into the frame, or at least hinted at, fairly early – you start asking yourself questions about what you are seeing, what the filmmakers are withholding – and yet, it’s still surprising when it hits.
The story begins on a note of lightness – with Robert telling the story about how he arrived to college on his first day, and was greeted enthusiastically by many students, so much so that he knew something was off here. He didn’t know any of these people, but they seem to know him. This begins the strange story about how Robert finds out about Eddy – his twin brother, who just so happened to go to the same school he did the year before, but dropped out. Both were adopted – and knew it – and figured out they were separated at birth. It’s became one of those bizarre news stories – that became even more bizarre when David saw it and showed up. Yes, it turns out there were three of them.
They each knew they were adopted – but no one, not them, not their parents – knew that they had been triplets. They were all placed in different homes, in different cities (all around New York) – but had very different backgrounds – upper class, middle class, working class – and yet, they turned out remarkably similar. They were interviewed everywhere back in the early 1980s – and we see those interviews. Their mannerisms are the same, their voice, their hair, their tastes in cigarettes, in women, etc. – all the same. Are we really that much of a slave to our genetics, that it doesn’t matter what the hell we do with our lives – we’re stuck?
The answer, of course, isn’t that simple – and director Tim Wardle knows that, and slowly dolls out the information about the darker truths at play here. You know there will be some sort of darkness as only two of the brothers are seen in contemporary interviews – although all three of their wives are interviewed. There is, of course, more to this story than those cheesy interviews from the 1980s give you – and this film will eventually get there. Things aren’t accidental.
I won’t spoil where this film goes – the twists that happen along the way. I will say that I do think the film perhaps overreaches in its final minutes to come to a conclusion that I don’t think the film fully supports – it’s more complicated than that. The film is slickly produced – perhaps too slickly at times – but the strangeness of the story eventually overcomes whatever flaws there in the construction or storytelling. This is an odd true story – one you won’t forget, and one that the documentary tells well.
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