Stories We Tell (2013)

So much average

hyped garbage

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

What is it really? Each person has his / her own. What is true in the stories we tell about our lives and feelings? This excellent film tells us about that in an astonishingly good way. The several intervenients whose lives intersect with each other, very intensely in some cases (most of them belong to the same family) are telling us their versions of what they know (or think they know) about a woman already dead and who is the mother of some of them. And they do it in a very natural and spontaneous way. Who and what was her after all? This movie has much to do with human nature and human relations mainly in the family and conjugal fields. Why reading fiction books if in our normal lives it may happen such interesting and important situations as the ones told in the best novels? A movie that must be indeed be seen.

If this would be a book , it would be written by Coelho. Other thing, documentary is so boring. 2h of linger, chewing something that could be much shorter. The story doesn't affect me at all and this is a very good story.The best thing about this documentary is that a guy who is 90 years old has his own teeth and the rest of his family has total prosthesis. Do you people have any dentist there or even more important, oral hygiene?! Jesus...That thing leave the biggest impression on me.

Produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian director Sarah Polley's documentary Stories We Tell is a tender and often moving inquiry into the life of her mother Diana who died in 1990 from cancer when Sarah was only eleven years old. Her investigation, consisting of interviews with her Toronto family members aided by Super-8 home movies (60% of which are recreated using look-alike actors), uncovers family secrets that slowly begin to be revealed during the course of the film. Sarah not only directs the movie but also conducts the interviews with the storytellers that include her father, siblings and half-siblings, and close friends of her mother who all share their memories of Diana and what she meant to them in their lives.Though Sarah does not share her own feelings or thoughts, she does acknowledge that her bond with Michael and her four siblings grew closer after her mother's death. Polley comes from a family closely associated with the theater. Her mother was an actress as was her father Michael, who narrates the story from his written account of his memories. Family members are asked to "tell the story from the beginning until now," and they relate their recollection of Diana and how she affected their lives, their stories filled with emotion and sometimes tears. As the storytellers go on, it becomes clear that Diana was a free spirit who was a more complex person than at first imagined.Everyone's memories of Diana and the details of her life are somewhat different but, on the whole, they complement each other, each providing one more piece of the puzzle. One interesting aspect of the story is the long term close relationship Diana had with film producer Harry Gulkin, a former union organizer and left-wing activist, and how the consequences of their affair strongly impacted Sarah's life. Though the film talks about their affair as one that stemmed from Michael's inability to satisfy Diana on many levels, we do not really know Diana's own thoughts and feelings on the subject.As far as Gulkin is concerned, he does share his point of view but lets it be known that he is uncomfortable in the context of the film and that he feels the story should be his alone to tell. Although it may go on a bit longer than necessary, Stories We Tell is never less than fascinating and is especially noteworthy for its refusal to engage in mawkishness or sentimentality. Though there are differences in interpretation among the storytellers, the fact that Sarah's family remains supportive of each other after all the years is a testament to their resilience and mutual respect.Stories We Tell underscores the point that it is difficult to separate what actually happened from the story we tell about it, our interpretation of the event. What is not said, however, is that over time, the story may become the only reality we know. When that happens, we no longer have a story, but we become our story, a position that severely limits our ability to grow. Perhaps the film's greatest contribution is to suggest a process that other families can use to look at how their interpretations often get in the way of acknowledging the simple truth of what happened and allow them to see events in their life from a broader perspective.

Intriguing, but not as emotionally overwhelming for the audience as it is for the storytellers. There is ever so palpable, cold detachment from the story's emotional spine. Maybe, it's because of the lack of perspective of the person who wanted this story to be out there- Sarah Polley herself. You can sense subtle reactions coming from her whenever she is on screen, for however little time, and build her point-of-view in your head. But that would be just another version of story in this baggage of different perspectives. Also, I would rather she hadn't filmed dramatized clips of real-life incidents and trust the audience's imagination.All that being said, it does not take away anything from the fact that "Stories We Tell" is a fascinating concept. If nothing else, it works as a brilliant think-piece on subjectivity of memories and distorted truth by different perspectives.