THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
Triplet whammy…
Could this be the talkingpoint doc of the year?
T heir names were Robert Shafran, Edward Galland and David Kellman. They all shared the same birthday: 12 July 1961. Yet it wasn’t until they were 19 years old that they discovered they were triplets who’d been separated at birth and placed with different foster families. When the reunited trio and their adoptive parents began to ask questions about their concealed pasts, they discovered they had been the unwitting participants of a secret psychological experiment…
This gripping documentary from British filmmaker Tim Wardle retells a remarkable real-life story with clarity and compassion. Shifting between past and present, the film skilfully handles its shifts in tone. The euphoria of its early scenes, where the teens become New York celebrities, gives way to something far more troubling as they gradually realise how profoundly their whole lives have been manipulated. And there’s no feelgood resolution here: the quest to discover the definitive truth behind the clandestine research could take literally decades to complete. Tom Dawson
THE VERDICT
This compelling tale of reunited triplets raises unsettling questions about human identity and medical ethics.