“Sidestory first. So remember I was on the fence about whether or not to recommend Hope Springs to my Mom? Turns out she went and saw it with her friends. They’d been anticipating it for a while. They gave it the thumbs up, and she agreed with my praise for Meryl Streep. What I found funny though, was her impression of Steve Carrell. She said that she “”liked the therapist”” but that “”somethign was funny”” about him. They kept wanting to laugh at him, but didnt think it was appropriate. I explained to her that he’s typically a comedic actor, and her world suddenly made sense. It was totes adorbs.
I like narrative films. This means that I inherently dislike documentaries. But I will watch the occassional one if the story strikes me as particularly compelling. Such was the case with The Imposter. I was hearing some incredible buzz about what a \m/ up movie this was. Color me intrigued.
The story goes thusly. Back in ’94, a teenage boy disappears from his Texas home. Three years later, a boy surfaces in Spain claiming to be the long lost son. And it gets bizarre. Yes, it’s a documentary, but it plays out kinda like a thriller. The suspense is _thick_ and the reenactments are seamlessly woven in with the interviews. Kinda hard to describe the exact style, but they’d be layered over each other, giving you both narrative and retrospective.
Watching it, you run a whole spectrum of ick emotions, and I loved that. As it unfolds, there’s a mix of confusion, disgust, discomfort, pity, surprise. I will admit that things started to drag, right around when I was really starting to abhor our con man. But then there was a WT\m/ twist that turned the whole story upside down. Right now, I’m still not sure what I believe. I love when movies are messed up, but knowing that this one is true makes it that much more intense.
The Imposter – \m/ \m/ \m/