Show + tell: Paul Flynn’s TV
This gripping true story of separated-at-birth triplets finding each other and reuniting has a dark secret at its heart
WHEN IT PREMIERED at 2018’s Sundance Festival, the documentary Three Identical Strangers became an instant talking point. The astonishing tale of triplets, separated at birth and adopted by different families in the New York State area, begins as a daydream before turning full nightmare. Over one and a half hours, the stories of Bobby, Eddy and David, three strapping Jewish lads reunited by an accident of fate at 19 years of age, appears to unlock troubling secrets of humanity. I cannot recommend this film enough.
The establishing details come thick and fast. Bobby is chummily manhandled on his first day at Boston Technical College, mistaken for the doppelgänger brother Eddy he knew nothing of. Following a phone conversation, he travels to Long Island to find his twin. When their story makes the national papers a third brother, David, recognises himself in their press shots. Now, three stars are born.
The first half of Three Identical Strangers plays out as a joyous reunion, as if Long Lost Family had filmed a forgotten fantasy sequence from Cheers. The lads tour the US chat show circuit in cute matching outfits, wowing audiences and stupefying hosts with their similarities. Because it is early ’80s New York, the city backdrop could not be any more glamorously bespoke for three hot curios with a sizzling backstory. Bobby, David and Eddy party at Studio 54, score a cameo in a Madonna movie, move into a shared bachelor pad and open a successful Soho bistro, Triplets.
At this exact moment, the unusually sensitive documentary undercuts its own blissful reunion scenes to open up their wounds. Personal testimonies, a New Yorker reporter and the word of family associates reveal a startling new angle, connecting the triplets to a human lab-rat experiment from the dawn of the age of modern psychology. David is an intensely likeable anchor for the story. Bobby carries about him something of the brokenwinged sparrow. Eddy’s absence from proceedings is felt, chillingly early.
What begins as an unusual tale of coincidence turns into an empathy trap for all humankind, taking in mental illness, genetics and the odd angles of families ill-equipped to properly take care of one another. Three Identical Strangers is a beautifully crafted story of unwitting human sacrifice. Thursday, 9pm, E4