Suppose you had an identical twin you never met. Not just a doppelganger, somebody who shares your DNA right down to the 23rd chromosome. What would you do when you met? How would you act? I think I’d immediately share my list of likes/dislikes – after all, I don’t know where I’ve been. I could think sea otter is a delicacy … or could I? Does Me2 like sourdough bread, “Weird” Al Yankovic, and amphibians? What exactly have I been missing out on? It would be funny if Me2 were a self-published TV critic, huh? Somebody who rails against “Saved by the Bell” and “House of Payne?” I could see that.
Be careful what you wish for, Me. There might just be a Me2. Just ask the Three Identical Strangers, all born July 12, 1961 to the same mother, yet never met until 1980. WTF? The documentary reenacts the scene for the imagination imapired – a happy-go-lucky 19-year-old with curly hair, meaty hands, and a big warm smile is taking on his first year of community college. And yet, when he gets there, he is fondly greeted as an old friend by literally dozens of people he has never met. Well, pal, either you have a twin or you’re in a cult.
Apparently, these guys are like Medflies, cuz it only took hours before a third showed up, and when he did, good gravy, their world went nuts. Talk show circuits couldn’t contain the pure giddy there is in these fellas finding one-another … and OMG they couldn’t be more alike if you paid them … or at least that’s what they projected. One of the funny things about this documentary is these identical triplets are actually fairly easy to tell apart if you’re around them a little. For one thing, they all have different backgrounds and it shows. Eddy, David, and Robert were, as babies, given off to three pigs – one built his house of sticks, one built his house of hay, and built his house of bricks. Seriously, all three boys were adopted by families of aggressively different socioeconomic backgrounds. Well that’s weird. Hmmm. Any weirder than three boys who find one another at age 19? No, probably not. Let’s move on then.
Or maybe not. There’s a lot more here than a touching reunion and the triplet follies. Just picture the questions that are in your mind right now because the movie asked all of them.
Three Identical Strangers is the nature v. nurture argument on crack. I’ve never noticed until now how polarizing this argument is. It’s the current basis for most of our national political animosity – there aren’t just
people who lean towards the nature side, there are millions of Americans who are nature-only people, folks who NEED to believe that genetics will win out no matter what … that certain individuals would succeed even if they hadn’t been given a huge trust fund or doting parents or white skin upon birth. This is the entire basis for big government v. small government: do you believe that folks should be able to achieve their dreams regardless of circumstance based entirely upon the genetics they came into the world with … or do you CORRECTLY acknowledge that some people have it a lot easier than others and perhaps there should be compensating factors?
This movie is not only a battleground for these questions, it is a gleeful indulgence in the study of them – This movie will angrily rail against the evils of Nazi experimentation on the one hand and then dive into landfill to find the test results in the next. This is good stuff, if a little unnerving; I fully expect a documentary Oscar nod out of this picture.
Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men at the pub
And who do ye think they be?
The “Blimey!” “Land sakes”-er, and a triple-take maker
Instead of one,
You’ve got three
Rated PG-13, 96 Minutes
Director: Tim Wardle
Writer: Dunno, but they probably wrote in triplicate
Genre: Weird science
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Scientists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Separated twins
