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My interpretation of this story is a bit vague, but I do remember watching the news when the story broke out for media attention in New York during the 1980s. At that time, I was living in New Jersey, not very far from the vicinity where the event was unfolding, which adds to the context as I am a couple of years older than the individuals within the story. The fraternal relationship of the three identical twins previously depicted in the movie had matured into more than just surface level when they met for the first time on one of the nearby campuses that they were attending. Andre the twin entered along with many other movies does a better job documenting, however.
All three of them, Edward, Robert, and David share different last names, mainly due to their adoptions into separate families with different social classes. One of them belonged to a working-class, one to a middle class, and another to an upper-middle-class family. Edward’s father was a harsh disciplinarian while, on the other hand, David’s father was very welcoming and friendly towards the other brothers after they were united. The man was called “Bubbalah” by all, which explains his gentle nature. Regardless of their upbringing, the twins had astonishingly similar habits, the same taste in cigarettes, women, and so much more, proving their connection. This is of course catnip for People magazine, “The Phil Donahue Show,” the “Today” show, and many other programs.
Archival footage of Tim Wardle’s documentary, “Three Identical Strangers,” shows just how different things were back then. As I said before, these guys were unavoidable, and to put it bluntly, although it was entertaining, I wasn’t impressed. And to finish my point about my peer group, how they viewed these performative people was hardly unusual.
In the first hour of this documentary, while some parts were slightly more pleasant than I remember, I did ask myself, “What’s the point?” repeatedly. And for my fellow viewers, so long as I do not have to suffer through archival footage of people in New York for the 80s set to ‘Walking on Sunshine,’ I think I will be fine.
The answer is no, and it is definitely not. One clue to this is that contemporary interview footage of only two of the three triplets is available. The film “Three Identical Strangers,” pivots into deep-seated conspiracy as well as other tragedies and dysfunctions.
Wardle implements a technique that perhaps other documentary filmmakers may not appreciate on ethical grounds, but it is undeniably effective in constructing a narrative. He conceals one important aspect of the early lives of the separated triplets, only revealing it when it becomes known that the adoption agency that placed the children, along with a larger cohort of separated twins, had a particular plan. I do not wish to elaborate any further, but it is sufficient to say that the social class of each of the families that these triplets were placed in was not random in nature.
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower and Going Clear’s author, has narrated part of Edward, Robert, and David’s story and related them in his articles for New Yorker investigative journalism magazine. As someone who didn’t follow any of Wright’s works, I was the perfect audience for this movie: my question of “whatever happened to” was answered in a way that is shocking, disturbing, and ultimately makes me wonder how society stands by without doing anything A question that didn’t have any clear answers alludes to the missing parts of the true story. I think this shift between the narrative and depiction of one-time pop culture icons gets blurred by the infamy that precedes the subjects. “Three Identical Strangers” uses dramatization, fast-paced editing, and a music-driven soundtrack to cover the most controversial case of neglect in modern-day documentaries. And even in the ones where a softer approach is used, this deeply rooted gut feeling and hope becomes the driving force, instead. In the end, I still don’t know if zipping its themes was the right way, but there is still the acceptance that all the subjects exploding into the story were once pop culture stars and that even the worst of their existence is already ‘normal’.
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