SPOILER ALERT: This review discusses the details of a movie currently still in theaters, and that discussion may significantly alter your perception of that movie. If you don’t like that, then simply know that Three Identical Strangers is Recommended.
The construction of Three Identical Strangers (2018) is the key to the success of this documentary. Much like the depth and currents behind the events that shaped these three boys’ lives that began prior to their birth, the documentary opens with the happy-happy joy-joy event of identical triplets, separated at birth, accidentally meeting each other as they near their twentieth year. This momentous occurrence is, of course, celebrated by the mass media of the day, who are charmed by the three undeniably charismatic boys, young men that are so alike despite being raised by disparate families. They are on the edge of manhood and possess that glow that comes from the mad coursing of hormones through their veins. Through first person interviews with these men, more than thirty years later, we share in their joy of discovering each other, chasing women and booze, and opening their own business. Incidentally, there is some culture shock in the interviews, as after those 30+ years, the triplets have changed significantly as they gain the insignia of old age.
These initial, surface events are well-told, as they’re narrated by themselves, their friends, and their adoptive families, but after 15 minutes my hair began to itch. It was hard to fathom how to keep up the interest of viewers if the balance of the movie was as light & fluffy as these first few minutes.
And then the movie shifts down a gear to dig into the slope before it. We come to learn that the boys are alike not only in various likes and dislikes, but also that they suffered from mental illness; two of them had spent short periods in the hospital for mental health reasons. They search for and find their biological mother, and, contrary to the fairy-tale mood of the story, they admit she was a bit of a disappointment, and surprised them by downing her booze as fast as they could.
And then the documentary shifts down into yet a lower gear, as the surviving boys, now in their late 50s, recount the suicide of the most charming of the three in his youth. The sense of foreboding is well-developed, so his death is not a complete shock. It comes after one of the other boys, now a young man, has left their jointly owned restaurant (Triplets, of course) and moved away, ostensibly due to disagreements in running the business. Even now, years later, the men are clearly deeply troubled at their brother’s death.
For all that this would seem to be the nadir of the emotional content of the documentary, it then uses this important aspect of their story to transition to the origins of their adoption, and this functions as a shift into yet a lower gear, as if that were possible.
As an investigative journalist who really broke this facet of the story tells us, this was not an ordinary adoption of triplets to separate families. We see as the story unfolds that these triplets, and various other infant multiples put up for adoption through the same adoption agency, are actually part of a study by a psychologist concerning the famous nature / nurture question; how much our genes and our environment contribute to a person’s personality, intelligence, their entire gestalt, if you will. The study subjects are periodically measured and tested using a subterfuge, so the families are not aware that their children are even multiples, much less part of a study. When this fact is discovered, the adoptive parents converge on the adoption agency, but leave in anger as they’re successfully stonewalled.
The exact nature of the research is never revealed, for, in fact, the study was never published, and no results were given to anyone that can be found. The data is hidden away in a vault under a 100-year legal seal controlled by a secretive council, the lead psychologist has died, and those assistants that can be found claim to know little about the overall study.
But this doesn’t hinder the documentary from asking the questions that are the hardest ones to answer. Consider the question of the ethics of manipulating the multiples into being introduced into separate families. The surviving triplets, as well as other multiples who were also unknowing subjects, are absolutely livid at their treatment. I think their unspoken contention is that they felt they were three parts of an single composite organism, and their separation has proven their undoing; they mourn what might have been, if only they had been raised together.
But there are other viewpoints on that question. The psychologist in charge, who is defended by one of his surviving assistants, may have argued that an assertion that separation was damaging was unscientific as it had never been studied, and the multiples were simply multiple human beings who happened to share identical genetics at the start of their lives. They thus presented an excellent opportunity for exploring the nature / nurture question, and there is no ethical boundary violated just by separating them. If, in fact, the study at least hinted that they were damaged by the separation, then one could suggest that another such study would be unethical, but this study was not, as an ethical breach requires the knowing damage to the health of one or more individuals.
On the other hand, one of the adoptive family members, a Holocaust survivor, points out that when people play with the lives of other people, it seems like disaster always ensues. She has quite a presence in the movie, and it’s a viewpoint worth thinking about.
It’s definitely an emotional point that can bring on a lot of discussion. One of the few mistakes of the documentarians was to permit the statement that many of these multiples suffered from mental health issues, and that more than the single suicide occurred. This may have been intended to suggest that an ethical breach really did occur, but to my mind, the statement is without context. How many study subjects were there, and what was the rate of suicide? Are there too few subjects to make the rate worthy of comparison to the general population suicide rate? And, as my Arts Editor pointed out, if the biological mothers of these multiples chose to give up these children, this can often be indicative of mental illness, given the strength of normal (or at least supposedly normal) maternal instinct, and since some mental illness is heritable, this may contaminate the conclusions of the study.
This all made for quite the discussion after the showing. All together, this is a well made movie about a provocative topic which will stretch most folks’ minds.
Recommended.
