Do yourself a favour and go into this movie blind. Normally I’m a complete whore for your time and attention, and I do implore you to come back once you’ve finished, but truly, you don’t need to read this review. The movie is good, worthy of your time. Go watch it.

***

When Alex is 18 he wakes up in a hospital bed and the only person he recognizes, in fact the only thing in the world he knows to be true, is that the 18 year old man sitting beside him is his twin brother Marcus. A woman claiming to be his mother brings him to a house she assures him has been his childhood home; he shakes hands with a cold man he’s told is his father. Alex has no memory of his life up until this point, knows nothing; he has to be told what a bicycle is and how to ride it – and then he doesn’t know where he’s going. The world seems scary and blank but Alex has one thing on which he can rely: brother Marcus. So after he starts to get the basics down, Alex asks Marcus about more personal questions like: who am I, really?

Is there any one person in your life who knows the entire answer to that question? The truth is, every single person who knows you knows a slightly different version of you. They see you through their own filters. You present yourself to them with your own hopes and biases about how they’ll perceive you. You may augment yourself in certain areas, you might tell little fibs about your past, or construct whole chapters of it out of thin air. Who, then, has the authority and insider knowledge to fully tell you who you are.

***Spoilers ahead

The truth is, Alex and Marcus had a terrible childhood. Terrible is too easy a word, actually. So when Alex’s memory was erased, Marcus kept it from him. He painted a lovely picture and Alex never questioned it. But Marcus found that lying to his best friend and twin would take its toll. Still, telling him the truth felt way worse than to carry on lying.

Gosh. What a choice. What a life. Not only did Marcus take on the the guilt of lying, but also the aloneness. Because that childhood, the knowledge of that childhood, was still his. And now he was alone with it. The lies were a gift to his brother Alex, but what did they do to Marcus? Now he has to pretend to not be fucked up. He has to look the other way when Alex acts lovingly toward his parents. He’s swallowing his own pain and anguish to protect his brother. But if you keep up these lies for years and years and years – how long before you start believing them? And how long before that buried dirt comes back to infect you? And when the truth surfaces, as it always does, will Alex see the lie as a gift or as a betrayal? Oof.

This documentary is presented very simply yet with great emotional impact.