Three Identical Strangers: A Movie Review
Title: Three Identical Strangers
Genre: Documentary/Psycho-Social
Director: Tim Wardle
Three Sentence Summary:
- The film Three Identical Strangers explores the effects of what happens when we humans mess with our own nature.
- It gets to the core of the great debate regarding nature vs. nurture, and although there is no solid conclusion, it can give us some interesting new ways of thinking.
- Both in story and report, we can see the amazing changes that humans undergo as we grow up.
Three Identical Strangers redefines the term separated at birth. To be taken away, to be observed for scientific purposes, to lose something that could have changed the trajectory your life. A documentary, Three Identical Strangers, lets us see the inside story on three identical brothers who were separated at birth through adoptions who met by accident when they were 19 years old. The story follows their lives and the effects the separation had on them, as well as the stories of those who influenced their lives the most.
The nature versus nurture debate has long been one of science’s most interesting topics, with no real idea which side wins. It has been the subject of great argument with experimentation, but no one can seem to decide which side truly has the most influence. This movie not only follows the lives of the boys, now in their fifties, but the science behind it as well. I do not want to ruin it by just stating the supposed conclusions that they come to, but it is truly fascinating to watch the arguments for both sides of the equation.
The biographical part of the story mainly focuses on the time after the boys meet in 1980. After all growing up within one hundred miles of each other in New York, two of them meet due to college and the other after he sees their story in the newspapers. Bobby, Eddy, and David instantly become best friends and a major news story. Their similarities after having been raised separately and in very differing families are remarkable and continue throughout their lives. After learning many years later that they were actually separated as part of a scientific experiment and that a lot of their lives had been orchestrated and observed, their world shatters. Eventually the effects are felt in significant ways and they no longer are just some miracle story, but rather one that is much darker.
Three Identical Strangers is an incredible story that is so influential in the way that we think about science, parenting, and how we understand other people. It has been released to Redbox on DVD/Blue-ray this week. Be prepared for some mind-bending ideas.
Cheers,
Frank