Actress, writer and director Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz) explores the secrets of her own family in this documentary portrait. Made over five years, Polley attempts to "be a detective in my own life" and in the process, discovers the secret life her mother lived. In an effort to understand this long-held family mystery, Polley revisits old 8mm home movies, has her father relay his account of events, and interviews every member of her family.
94%147 reviews
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long,” quotes a major character in Canadian actor/writer/director Sarah Polley's gorgeous, quietly daring family documentary. A memorial to her late mother, Diane, an actress who smiled like Marilyn Monroe and conducted her love life just as chaotically, it consists of frank interviews with the extended Polley clan interspersed with extraordinary amounts of sun-bleached Super-8 footage.
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This playful and elegiac documentary is wholly of a piece with Sarah Polley's fiction work, and just as rewarding.
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Everyone has a different story. I found myself holding my breath listening to them talk. The story twists like a thriller.
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Has a number of transparent virtues, including its humor and formal design, although its most admirable quality is the deep sense of personal ethics that frames Ms. Polley's filmmaking choices.
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Polley's cine-tribute is a gripping and absorbing meditation on the unknowability of other lives.
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Skilfully deploys some ambitious creative gambits to explore the director's own family background.
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Polley's fearless personal journey is a huge achievement, a genuine revelation - but the less detail you know beforehand, the better. Go in cold, come out warmed.
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