X
- 2018
- PG-13
- Neon
- 1 h 36 m
- 2018
- PG-13
- Neon
- 1 h 36 m
Summary Three strangers are reunited by astonishing coincidence after being born identical triplets, separated at birth, and adopted by three different families. Their jaw-dropping, feel-good story instantly becomes a global sensation complete with fame and celebrity, however, the fairy-tale reunion sets in motion a series of events that unearth...
Directed By: Tim Wardle
Written By: Grace Hughes-Hallett, Tim Wardle
- 2018
- PG-13
- Neon
- 1 h 36 m
- 2018
- PG-13
- Neon
- 1 h 36 m
Three Identical Strangers
7.7
Where to Watch
Summary Three strangers are reunited by astonishing coincidence after being born identical triplets, separated at birth, and adopted by three different families. Their jaw-dropping, feel-good story instantly becomes a global sensation complete with fame and celebrity, however, the fairy-tale reunion sets in motion a series of events that unearth...
Directed By: Tim Wardle
Written By: Grace Hughes-Hallett, Tim Wardle
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
81
93% Positive
28 Reviews
28 Reviews
7% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
81
93% Positive
28 Reviews
28 Reviews
7% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Three Identical Strangers tells a remarkable story. In fact, it tells several. It’s already extraordinary 20 minutes in, and then it goes to unexpected and yet more amazing places, like a narrative feature by a master storyteller.
Three Identical Strangers may not achieve the kind of redemptive catharsis we wish for here, but it achieves something almost as miraculous, making an otherwise unbelievable story seem believably real.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 71 User Ratings
7.7
89% Positive
63 Ratings
63 Ratings
10% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
1% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 71 User Ratings
7.7
89% Positive
63 Ratings
63 Ratings
10% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
1% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
One of the best made documentaries I've ever seen. From the top of my head, I can't really think of any documentary that tops this. Sure, the story is amazing and unbelievable, but to get it all out on the big screen so it makes sense for the viewers is a completely different thing and it was beautifully done in this case. A masterpiece.
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Director Tim Wardle’s film is full of surprises, the least of which is its own dramatic shift in tone from wildly entertaining to absolutely disturbing.
Tim Wardle engagingly recounts the fascinating story of a set of triplets who were separated at birth and reunited through coincidence when they were 19. The telling however slowly takes a darker turn as facts around the original separation are probed and frightening truths about science and human intent come to the surface.
Where some see coincidence, Wardle finds a true-life conspiracy, and pursues it all the way to conclusion after gripping conclusion.
Three Identical Strangers does a solid job laying out a story that’s both remarkable and repulsive in equal measures.
Director Tim Wardle lays a lot on the strength of the events he’s covering, and they are indeed compelling enough on their own to hold your interest. The flipside of this is that the film has little power outside of a first viewing.
What an incredible story, full of plot twists and heart wrenching stories. Fiction writers could not have written this true story!! The proof is in the pudding, that nurture heavily influences nature. Even though genetics inform preferences and physical traits, nurture shapes how we respond to the the ups and downs of life. A must see documentary for parents.
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Documentaries are hard to find in movie houses these days. Gone are the days when you could see films by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris fairly regularly. However, Tim Wardle’s “Three Identical Strangers” is a worthy successor to the films of these great documentarians and you might be able to see it locally. What makes this film worth your time? First of all, it is well-made technically and not only keeps you interested with “just the facts” but it also does what all great documentaries do – it asks penetrating questions and debates ideas (for example, nature vs nurture and should cold logical science be applied dispassionately to human subjects regardless of the damage that might be done). But you don’t need to think about these serious topics to enjoy it as a weird tale of what happens to these “three identical strangers.”
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Interesting and reasonably well-made, but morally questionable in how it presents some of the material
What is the primary factor in making us who we are? Were the truly great figures of pure evil - Elizabeth Báthory, Adolf ****, Harold Shipman, Peter Scully, Adam Sandler - always destined to become who they became, or are there to be found moments and influences in their environment which turned them into the monsters with whom we're familiar? Is our destiny genetically encoded at the moment of our conception? In short, it's the question of nature vs. nurture. Focused on precisely these questions, twin studies attempt to determine the etiology of differential psychologies in individuals who are genetically similar.
And these are the murky waters charted by director Tim Wardle's Three Identical Strangers. However, for me, although the fascinating central story is undoubtedly gripping, there are just too many egregious problems, including an excess of distasteful sensationalism; a dearth of contextualising scientific information; overly simplistic ethical, moral, philosophical, and esoteric conclusions; stylistic drabness; and, an overreliance on plot twists beyond what you would expect of a documentary.
The film tells the story of Bobby Shafran, Eddy Gallan, and David Kellman, who, through luck and coincidence learn they are triplets separated as babies. Becoming minor celebrities, they appear on talk shows across the country. However, they and their families are puzzled as to why they had been separated, and why their adoptive parents had not been told they were triplets. Was it a coincidence that Bobby had been placed with an affluent family, Eddy with a middle-class family, and David with a blue-collar family? Did the regular aptitude and psychological tests they received as children, part of what their parents were told was a "routine childhood-development study", have anything to do with their separation? What was the involvement of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services? How much did Louise Wise Services know? How was Dr. Peter B. Neubauer of the Jewish Board's Child Development Centre involved? Where was the birth mother?
As to the question of nature vs. nurture, initially, events seem to point very much to nature - the brothers smoked the same brand of cigarettes; they had been amateur wrestlers; they had the same taste in women; they had similar speech patterns. However, as the documentary goes on, the argument shifts, with the brothers admitting they over-emphasised their similarities at the time, leading to what seemed a clear win for biological determinism. As time went on, however, their differences began coming to the surface, and ultimately, the documentary argues in favour of nurture.
However, how it goes about establishing this argument is questionable, with Wardle sliding more and more into sensationalism. So intent is he on controlling our perceptions that he leaves out a massive piece of information until such time as he deems it pertinent to reveal, and when he does so, he explicitly tells us what to think about it. It's difficult to go into any of this without straying into spoilers, so consider the rest of this paragraph a spoiler. Essentially, Wardle paints the suicide of one of the brothers as unquestionably the result of his adopted father's disciplinarianism, a father who is still alive, and who appears in the film. Wardle does this by cutting from a clip of that father wondering if he had a role in the suicide to one of the other brothers saying, to paraphrase, "I'm still alive because my parents weren't as strict as his." Blaming his death entirely on parenting in this manner is facile, grossly overly simplistic, and offensive. In fact, the way Wardle handles the suicide in general is deplorable, teasing it and teasing it, before gleefully revealing it for maximum tabloid-esque shock value.
There are other problems, however. Aesthetically, the documentary is drab and dull, almost lifeless. The recreations are bland, and the talking head interviews are flat. Additionally, twin studies are a recognised and accepted scientific practice, but Wardle is so intent on making sure we are appalled at what happened to the brothers that he provides almost no context. If he had spent less time trying to steer the viewers' emotions and more in providing a broader theoretical framework, the film would have worked much better.
The story of Three Identical Strangers poses fascinating questions about nature vs. nurture and the morality of certain types of research, but Wardle's subjective opinion comes across far more than it ought. More interested in driving home the shock value than providing a penetrating documentary about free will vs biological determinism, there is little here that you wouldn't be able to find on Google. Given the outrageousness of the material, that Wardle has made such a conventional film is disappointing.
Report
From the "truth is stranger" department comes this surprising story: Triplets were separated at birth and by incredible coincidence, discovered each other 19 years later. This doc features interviews with the trio, their friends and family, plus plenty of photos and footage from their short-lived fame. After detailing this situation, the investigation goes deeper into the reasons they were split up. This is when it gets dark and the pace starts to slow. Although there aren't any innovative approaches to the form (and the trailer pretty much reveals the salient points), it still unfolds an unusual situation with fascinating and sometimes disturbing information.
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Production Company
RAW
Release Date Jun 29, 2018
Duration 1 h 36 m
Rating PG-13
Genres
Tagline The Most Amazing, Incredible, Remarkable True Story Ever Told
Awards
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Primetime Emmy Awards
• 3 Nominations
