For starters, I want to get down to essentials. I think, and below I will argue, that Sarah Polley’s film Stories We Tell is marvelous. Actually, it’s better than that. It’s that rare movie experience – all too rare these days – where you encounter a movie so rich and deep in form and content that it blows away that jaded sense of anticipated disappointment that as a movie fan you try to suppress with goodwill and hope, and as a critic you accept as an unhappy professional hazard.
very much its own unique thing
As a rule, I try to avoid such declarations, especially in the first paragraph of a short review. That’s in recognition that it’s a busy world, patience is short, and once the reader has digested the star rating they’ve come to know where I stand on the salient issue. It’s fair to assume that they may not move on to what follows, but just move onto something else more pressing.
So this review is especially for the irrepressibly curious; it’s also for those that like to savour the kind of movie that sits in the mind like a welcome guest. But that visitor is not someone you know too well. It is perhaps a distant relative. They are great company. And the longer they stay, the more one learns – about who they are and where they come from and the personal universe they call home.
Polley’s title tells you her film is about stories and storytelling and the narrative it delivers is a ripper. All of which makes the film virtually impossible to review in a way that doesn’t ruin one of the things that is so good about it. This is a way of saying that Stories We Tell is full of surprises, and last minute twists. It’s possible to discover, on the net, this film’s 'spoilers’. But I don’t see the point of revealing them here. Part of the film’s great pleasure is allowing those moments to embrace you like a sudden rush of emotional excitement.
It’s a movie about family and family secrets. It’s also a movie about itself. Or to put it another way, Polley takes pains to reveal how and why she’s made certain choices as a storyteller. And that taps a very important theme in the movie; facts lie because they rarely are the real truth and the real truth is informed by experience, desire, and the hope of a happy ending.
Stories We Tell arrives as a documentary. It features those visual and stylistic quirks that we know so well in the form: to-camera interviews in casual settings, archival footage – here it’s stills and Super-8 home movies – and there’s even a specially prepared story, written by Polley’s dad, a kind of 'confessional’ memoir about his life, and the story Polley hopes to tell. And we hear this delivered in voice-over. And we also see Polley in the sound studio 'directing’ her dad’s performance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Most of that description sounds all very straight and conventional. Except it isn’t. Stories We Tell is a true story but it’s only pretending to be a certain kind of documentary. Instead, it is very much its own unique thing; which is a fitting metaphor for a narrative that explores identity and the myths and legends that swirl around in any family.
I think Polley’s conscious of the poetic possibilities in her style here. But there’s something else going on too, something that challenges our attitude to what a 'doco’ can be, or should be.
The story Polley elects to tell is, in a way, her own story. She uses friends and family as 'witnesses’ and all of them have a different version of what was, is, and might be. Like all of us, they are or can be precious about their memories and here that notion is something sacred: at one point a member of Polley’s 'cast’ declares that he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks, since it’s his version of events that matters most. In other words, he is claiming that it is no longer the filmmaker’s story but his own. The movie is full of such irony. And home truths.
The 'plot’ – and I’m not being facetious, the movie has the drive and exquisite melodramatic energy of fiction – concerns a family mystery.
Polley is 34. She was born in Canada in 1979. She is the daughter of Diane MacMillan and Michael Polley, both actors. Sarah, as is well known by most movie fans, has been acting in movies since she was a kid and in 2006 she made her directorial debut with Away from Her.
Diane died of cancer when Sarah was 11 years old. From an early age, her siblings would joke that Sarah doesn’t look much like her dad. By all accounts, Sarah is very close to Michael. The rumours persisted. Did Diane have an affair? Who were the possible candidates? Were Mum and Dad ever happy?
So Sarah Polley filmmaker sets out to discover whether there is any merit in any of this. A close look at the available facts reveals there is a definite possibility that Diane may have had an affair, with Sarah the result. It turns out that Diane, in an effort to revive a once robust career, took a gig in Montreal in a play called Toronto, and this meant she was away from Michael for a couple of months. Polley discovers two men – both in show business – who could fit the role of biological father.
Of course, Diane cannot speak for herself; but Polley has her family and friends claim her as a wonderful, bubbly presence, a restless spirit with boundless energy. The Super-8 footage Polley threads between the talking heads action and observational episodes seems to confirm this; here is Diane always on the move, always smiling. Yet, we know from what we hear that this happy person was the captive of a marriage under siege from all kinds of sadness. As for Michael, he’s stoic and philosophical about it all. But he holds onto the memory of a wife he loved and a daughter that he cherishes.
As Polley’s investigation reveals long hidden things, the pressure builds; what will she do with what she knows? Is there more hurting than healing taking place here?
Perhaps what I like most about this film is Polley’s love of her family. We’re so used to seeing this subject to be the site of hate and rancor. But these people are decent and generous with the world and each other despite whatever wounds they carry. That’s a family secret they are – and Polley is – prepared to share.
