Stories We Tell (2013)

Sarah Polley interviews her family and others close to the situation to find each person's "truth" regarding the family's open secret about Sarah's parentage. And it's sort of interesting, but not documentary interesting. I kept thinking the same thing that one of her siblings conveyed, that every family's got stories so what makes this one so special?

The answer is that it's not very special, but it could have been. Sarah's tunnel-vision insists upon putting herself at the center of the story, which I'm sure is a very natural tendency. We're all the stars of our own lives, after all. But, in doing so, she relegates the truly fascinating section of her family lore to a footnote. The fact that her mother was the first Canadian woman to lose custody of her children in a divorce and that it was a newspaper-worthy story at the time should've been the real focus here.

C+