When I sat down to watch the documentary “Stories We Tell” (directed by Sarah Polley), it was late on a Sunday night. I’d just spent endless hours watching football, and was preoccupied by the mediocre performance of my fantasy team.
However, after I hit play on “Stories” what I found was that almost immediately I became lost in one of the most detailed, fascinating, engrossing, entertaining, emotionally honest, and at once tragic and hopeful stories I can remember seeing in a very long time.
The film starts by showing several people preparing to give what appear to be fairly straight-forward interviews. Cameras and lighting are being set up in different rooms of houses and apartments. Subjects fix their shirts, check their teeth, and engage in small talk with the unseen off-camera interviewer.
We’re then introduced to several characters, identified only by their first names. Once the conversations begin (which we quickly learn are with several family members, and a few close friends), Polley asks her subjects to simply reminisce about their memories of her mother, a vivacious, pretty, blonde, Canadian actress who, by all accounts, was convivial and charismatic.
By relating their memories, Polley is able to get her subjects to speak openly about her mom, as well as the most intimate details of their own lives, and how the two connect. Her pointed questions nudge them along, allowing each speaker to provide a little bit more clarity to the picture. The degree to which her subjects open up is remarkable. As is the story that follows.
Along with the interviews, Polley uses dramatic recreations, and real-life home movies effectively, to further the story. We see what life was like for her and her family, growing up in middle-class Toronto. Some of it is set in the late 60s, other parts (judging by the cars parked on the streets) as recently as the 90s.
The subjects reveal contradictions about this woman, and the family’s shared history. One recalls her being an open book, while another describes a woman with secrets and subtle nuance. Which is true? Both? What emerges is the complex portrait of a woman much admired by all those around her, whose life (like all of ours) was far from perfect, or simple.
The trusting atmosphere the director must’ve created is evident in the levels to which the characters are willing to share. Reaching back sometimes decades into their memories, each family member gives their take on who this woman was, and what she meant to them personally. Reading pages of recollections in an empty recording studio, Polley’s father is particularly eloquent and touching.
What Polley uncovers (discovers?), and what the film is truly about is how, unwittingly but inevitably, we all create our own distinct narrative. Ultimately, based on our limited experiences (ones shared with the many, many other people around us), we make the best sense we can of the world. In the process we unknowingly alter and bend that story, to suit our own needs. How accurate is it? Depends upon who you ask. As well as upon their flawed take on events. Ask ten eyewitnesses to an argument what really happened, and you’ll likely get ten versions of “the truth.“ To complicate matters, often we project that subjective understanding onto those nearest us, and accept that as reality. But when it comes down to it, how much do we honestly know about the inner thoughts, feelings and motivations of even our closest friends and family?
Several times while watching “Stories We Tell,” I considered how I might go about writing an accurate review. Once I realized how much I liked the film, and how much I wanted to recommend it, I wanted to describe it in a way that would do the film justice, without revealing too much. Maybe I always do this? But I mention it in this instance because, along the way, the movie uncovers several details about the elder Mrs. Polley’s life, the veracity of which some of its subjects aren’t entirely clear about. They are surprising, perhaps even to the director. I won’t divulge them here. To do so would be cheating you.
But how, then, to make “Stories We Tell” sound interesting enough that you’ll want to invest your time? I mean, from what I’ve said so far, it might come across as some self-indulgent vanity work, where the director does little more than ask people about her mom. Trust me when I say this isn’t really what the film’s about. Or better put, it’s not ALL that the film’s about. And it doesn’t even begin to capture the scope of this movie. It works on so many other levels. Its aspirations are so much greater.
Rarely (perhaps never?) have I seen documentary where subjects so willingly share so much about their most intimate thoughts and feelings. The level of honesty the interviewees display is incredible. The story that ultimately unfolds, and what the director discovers about her own life, is truly amazing. It is simultaneously so beautiful and expressive that I wondered briefly “was this whole thing scripted? Was the story a product of an unusually creative imagination? Is this just the result of a terrifically gifted film maker?” Though I know it’s not fiction, the story and how it’s revealed, as well as its characters, are all almost perfectly poetic.
It is ultimately tremendously satisfying and rewarding. It’s not often that a movie makes me reflect on my own family history. This one certainly did.
What “Stories We Tell” illustrates so poignantly is that each of us does, indeed, have our own unique, wonderful, and significant story to tell. That Polley bares hers so openly and sincerely in “Stories We Tell,” is a genuine gift.
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