THE IMPOSTER

UK, 2012, 106 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Bart Leyton.

There was a 2010 feature film called The Chameleon, the story of a young Frenchman, who posed as the son of an American mother, the son having been abducted three years earlier. The family accepted him, until the FBI investigated him and discovered the truth. The Frenchman was notorious for assuming the identities of other young men. His name was Frederic Bourdin.

The Chameleon told the story, leaving it to the audience to try to understand something of his mentality and motivation as well as wondering how the family could have accepted him as the boy, lost for three years who seemingly had turned up in Spain. Some of the names and locations were altered for the drama.

With The Imposter, we have a documentary re-telling the story (and keeping up quite some suspense as to what will happen, even the suggestion that the family may have killed the boy who disappeared) but also exploring what the main protagonists where thinking and feeling. It makes for an absorbing cinema experience, both fascinating and stimulating. The boy’s name was Nicholas Barclay, who disappeared from his Texas home when he was thirteen.

The film-makers rely on interviews with the imposter himself, but also with the boy’s mother and sister (the sister went to Spain and brought the boy home after the US Embassy gave him a passport) and other members of the family. There are interviews with a woman official who became suspicious as well as a private investigator.

However, there are no screenplay credits in the film, nor in the credits listed in the Internet Movie Database. Since the interviews are acted (most convincingly), where did their texts come from? Transcripts? Reconstructed interviews? Which makes the film something of a docudrama rather than a straight documentary. There are some sequences, especially of Frederic dancing at the end, which seem to be actual footage.

The film explores two major questions:
- What motivated Frederic, what kept him going during the experience in the United States, how could he
successfully deceive the family?
_ - How could the family believe him? Did they believe what they wanted to believe?

Looking at the actor portraying Frederic and listening to him makes fascinating viewing. He puts up a plausible scenario about his French/Algerian origins, his desire for security, his ‘American dream’, how he felt sustaining the fiction, his elaboration of a story of abduction, torture by military, sexual abuse along with other boys, his being forbidden to speak English (hence his accent). He then describes what having a family meant, the love and freedom he experienced. Which is all put into abeyance when we discover he has taken on many identities before this one.

Cary Gibson, Nicholas Barclay’s sister, puts a very plausible case for accepting Frederic as Nicholas, as does Nicholas’ mother. Once again, the actors portraying them do a convincing job, enabling us to believe that they believed and are genuinely shocked when the truth is revealed (let alone the accusations of murdering Nicholas).

In a way this is a ‘True Crime’ story, reconstructing some scenes, presenting the interviews and points of view, tantalising the audience with what seems one of the more far-fetched stories they are likely to come across.

Whatever the truth if the matter, The Imposter certainly gets us in.

Stranger than fiction? Audience response, Disbelief? The role of the family? The role of Frederic?

1. All an interesting documentary? Playing as a docudrama?
2. The factual material: names, dates, careers, investigations, the legal and police?
3. Stranger than fiction? Audience response, incredulity? The response of the family to the discovery of Nicholas?
4. The style, Nicholas and his life in Texas, his mother, his sister and her husband? His age, behavior, disappearance?
5. The style, narrative, build-up? Interviews, scenes reconstructed and dramatised? More real for the audience?
6. The phone call after three years, from Spain, his story, the abduction, the military, the sexual abuse, forbidden to speak English, change of hair colour, eyes, the transformation in three teenage years?
7. Frederic, the actor impersonating him? The immediate impact for the audience? His being interviewed? Convincing? Age, appearance, articulate, truth and lies, Algerian origins, France, his family, identity, choosing Nicholas, calling the US? His story, how convincing? Carey going to meet him, her belief, the American embassy, the passport, his arrival, his image of the United States and his comment on it? His description of his thoughts, thought processes, his feelings, the shrewdness needed to survive, assessing people, situations, his responses? His manner of talking, quiet, convincing? The family making allowances for the changes? Having a home, security? Meals, school, happiness? The investigating officer and her suspicions? The private detective? His going to work, questions about Nicholas and his life leading to suspicions of murder? Accusations against the family? The truth about Nicholas, the family reaction? His being interned, seeing him dance? The effect of this experience on the family, on the audience? Information about his many identities, his marriage and family? Portrait of a con man?
8. Carey, the interviews and her speeches, tracing the effect of the experience? Believing him, going to Spain, to find him despite the difficulties? The passport control? The interviews with her husband, with her mother? At home, the new life, making allowances? The shock of the truth, the bitterness about the accusation of murder? Carey’s husband and his character? Describing the situation?
9. The portrait of Nicholas’s mother, background, the interviews, her experience, drugs, discipline? Her accepting the impostor? The older brother, his lack of interest, drugs, absence, death?
10. The plausibility of Nicholas having been murdered? Murder by the family?
11. The official, the interviews with her, her checking and investigating, pursuing the truth, her conclusions?
12. The private detective, his character, the nature of his investigation, surveillance, his theories, digging up the ground to find the body?
13. The audience response to the film, as a feature, as a documentary?
14. The theme of believing what we want to believe? The members of the family and the private detective? And the audience?