If you watch this movie expecting it to be as advertised, you may be disappointed, or at any rate bemused. The thumbnail summaries that I have read, as well as the movie's own introductory passages, all present it as an exploration of how different people create different stories from the same event. I think this may be what the director set out to do. But in fact, in the end everyone pretty much agrees about what happened, with one or two notable exceptions.
What Sarah Polley ended up creating is a meditation on what breaks families apart, and what holds them together. The insights are important, and often counterintuitive, and sometimes startling. What captured my interest, and moved me deeply, was not the detective aspects of the story -- not the revealing of family secrets -- but the gradual unraveling of their causes and effects. For this, the format of the film -- interviews with many family members and family friends -- is absolutely crucial. Some reviewers have complained that the interviews become boring and repetitive. I admit that some patience is required in hearing them out, but it is amply repaid.
I am also grateful to Sarah Polley for trying to do something different on screen. In the featureless landscape of contemporary cinema, Stories We Tell is a landmark.
What Sarah Polley ended up creating is a meditation on what breaks families apart, and what holds them together. The insights are important, and often counterintuitive, and sometimes startling. What captured my interest, and moved me deeply, was not the detective aspects of the story -- not the revealing of family secrets -- but the gradual unraveling of their causes and effects. For this, the format of the film -- interviews with many family members and family friends -- is absolutely crucial. Some reviewers have complained that the interviews become boring and repetitive. I admit that some patience is required in hearing them out, but it is amply repaid.
I am also grateful to Sarah Polley for trying to do something different on screen. In the featureless landscape of contemporary cinema, Stories We Tell is a landmark.