It is one woman's film about her mother. One family. A myriad of stories. For nothing happens to just oneself - our actions and reactions reverberate around those close to us to an extent that they become directly implicated by them, involved further in our lives, shaped by our decisions. What truth is it that Harry Gulkin wants Sarah Polley to strive to achieve here? She's selling nothing as truth. These are 'stories we tell', and in their vast volume, with all their contradictions and all their suggestions, they bring us closer to that truth than any 'definitive' version ever could. And anyway, this is not a film about a story, but a film about stories - any and all of them. And in that Polley's personal family history is her own, and told with a deft balance of objectivity and appropriate subjectivity, it is something to which we can possibly all relate emotionally. Specifics must be specifics, but what Polley wrings out of her interviewees (willingly or not) is an examination of the human condition, and in particular its relationship with, understanding of, manipulation of, refusal of and acceptance of memory. Sure, aren't all life's experiences memories by the time they've been processed by our brains? The openness of those included in her film, and it would appear that there's no vital party not included, is a great tool for Polley to wield: rather than sift the facts out from the lies, she embraces the unreliability of memory and the variety of opinion, and muses on the reasons for why that individual recounts that story in that way, and also the potential repercussions.
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