So, this documentary was getting really good buzz so I was looking forward to it quite a bit. I carefully avoided any spoilers and I’m glad I did. The premise of the film is, well, right there in the title. It stars with a young man going off to college. When he gets there, everyone is very friendly, but they’re also calling him a different name. Things unfold from there and from the title, you can safely surmise that this isn’t just a doppelganger situation; more of a tripleganger, if that’s a thing. It’s a good movie and it has some surprises and a couple of interesting, thought-provoking twists. I do feel that the twists are getting a little oversold. They aren’t mindblowing, out of nowhere kind of twists, just some surprising moments that play into the theme of the film, which is the old question of nature vs. nurture. So, even though the plot isn’t quite as labyrinthine as I had been led to believe, it is still a compelling story and so I don’t want to tell you much about it. The three men at the heart of the story are all compelling, both in archival footage and in current-day interviews. I had a few mostly superficial complaints about the movie. It relies a bit too heavily on re-enactments, the bane of documentary filmmaking if you ask me, and it’s definitely got a bit of a sheen on it. I guess I mean that the visual style and the re-enactments give the film a kind of made-for-tv feeling. This isn’t, you know, the end of the world, but it definitely felt a little out of place on the big screen. Still, it’s entertaining, brisk, thematically interesting and has some charismatic subjects, so it’s still a really good film and I definitely recommend it. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – has a kind of a made-for-tv look to it, but this documentary has a compelling story and compelling characters, even if the twisty nature of the plot has been somewhat oversold. 3 ½ stars.