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STORIES WE TELL Send This Review to a Friend
Canadian writer-director Sarah Polley has made an unusual documentary investigating the history of her family, and the result has broad ramifications. It may make you wonder what secrets are buried within your own family history. This is an unusually creative excursion into personal lives and the perceptions that linger. Along the way there is a major surprise with an unexpected revelation. I won’t spoil it for you.
The focus of the film is Polley’s mother, Diane, an actress who died when the director-to-be was 11 years old. She recalls her mother from her childhood memories, family photographs, home movies and film clips. She also enlists family members, key acquaintances and actors to fill out details. The film is exciting, never static.
Everything is so convincing that only at the end, when the credits roll, will you be able to discern who the actors were as opposed to the real people fleshing out the stories. On the one hand, you may feel a twinge of having been taken, but on the other, you are likely to admire how convincing all of the story-tellers are.
Polley also appears in the film as the director and instigator of the project. The effect is seamless, and we are quickly immersed in the Polley family, its history and the magnetism that Polley’s mother possessed. As the portrait gets more and more fleshed out, we see Diane as a spirited, talented woman carving out her own life independently of what others may have expected of her.
The mix of real persons with those portraying them makes the film highly unusual in terms of documentary-making. The result is a level of creativity that renders the film such absorbing an exploration, marked by humor as well as drama. Polley deserves immense credit for having pulled this off so well. She is an impressive director, as was seen in her 2007 film “Away From Her.” “Stories We Tell” offers an entirely new take on her talent. A Roadside Attractions release.
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