GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

valadas What is it really? Each person has his / her own. What is true in the stories we tell about our lives and feelings? This excellent film tells us about that in an astonishingly good way. The several intervenients whose lives intersect with each other, very intensely in some cases (most of them belong to the same family) are telling us their versions of what they know (or think they know) about a woman already dead and who is the mother of some of them. And they do it in a very natural and spontaneous way. Who and what was her after all? This movie has much to do with human nature and human relations mainly in the family and conjugal fields. Why reading fiction books if in our normal lives it may happen such interesting and important situations as the ones told in the best novels? A movie that must be indeed be seen.

jasonlock-11608 I think the marketing blurb had hyped me up to expect something this wasn't. I'd read of bold playing with form and reality, the nature and recall of memory etc... I enjoyed Away From Her very much too, so was hoping for something unusual here. I can't agree with the other reviews here.I didn't find it particularly courageous or bold in its form, or content matter. Some scenes are recreated, it's as clear as day, not formally bold, and I'm perplexed by the reactions. I didn't come away feeling I'd learned much about the human condition, it was more like going to a friend's house, only, a friend I'd only just met and had no connection with, and having her life story relayed to me. There's nothing shocking in the family timeline, which is fine, but there was no great emotional question I could relate to and wanted answered either. It feels more self-indulgent than the personal insight I was expecting. Not a particularly fascinating life or universal family story. Just one girl's pretty-average story. Not to take away from what the Director feels or demean her life experience, but honestly, it felt precious and narcissistic. I find some aspects of my family history equally as interesting but I know no-one would want to see a film about it.

Zev This is a documentary that tries to explore larger issues of humanity by exploring the various secrets, stories and viewpoints buzzing around Sarah's dead mother, including her personality, her relationship with her husband, as well as her possible infidelity, the last of which has an obvious consequence on Sarah. Sarah makes everyone share their version of 'the story' of her mother, and splices it all together while investigating and 'interrogating', to see what truth, if any, emerges. At least, that's the theory.The plot summary has this to say: "Stories We Tell explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about how our narratives shape and define us as individuals and families, all interconnecting to paint a profound, funny and poignant picture of the larger human story." But don't be fooled. The only thing correct about that summary is that it is 'deeply personal'. And it should have stayed deeply personal.The "elusive nature of truth" and the different versions of "the story" is just simple gossip. No amount of film-school hyperbole or fancy talk can alter that fact. When a key person in the story states towards the end that only the key people should be allowed to tell the story because only they know the full truth, he is partially correct. He is incorrect, because it's obvious that even he doesn't know the full truth and is delusional. But he is also correct in that everyone else is just passing on useless gossip that only provides a disservice to the truth and to her mother.But this documentary purportedly demonstrates how people interpret the truth according to their personal viewpoints and needs. I suppose that is true in this one deluded case, but with everyone else, the only thing that we 'learn' is that they enjoy gossip and are exhibitionists.As far as the alleged thoughtful commentary is concerned, I'll never forget this outrageous quote from the movie: "She had the strength and ability to keep all of her loyalties." Somehow, loyalty now means lying to your husband.Painfully personal introspections are exhibited, private bedroom details are shared as if they were an anthropology experiment, and juicy rumors and gossip are thrown around even concerning a dead person. All throughout the movie I kept wondering what is wrong with these people. Despite the attempt at sophistication and the lack of scenes of people yelling at each other, watching this felt the same to me as watching Jerry Springer. Dressing it up with pretentious attempts at sophistication and self-obsessed introspection does not change the fact that they are just making a big fuss over whether she cheated or not, and who with.So, the larger issues of humanity boils down to gossip and infidelity. Therefore I didn't find anything interesting here, since I am not a voyeur. This is just dirty laundry. Please do not flaunt it. Even if it were really "profound, funny and poignant" then it would be questionable, but it isn't.I even found the 'surprises' in the movie very unsurprising, because it all boils down to character. And the character was obvious to me in the first ten minutes.Imagine if only one of the key people refused to participate in this movie based on the fact that it was private. The movie would have been impossible to make because the only thing left would have been gossip. The fact that they didn't refuse to participate says more to me about humanity than the stories they told. Unfortunately.

Howard Schumann Produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian director Sarah Polley's documentary Stories We Tell is a tender and often moving inquiry into the life of her mother Diana who died in 1990 from cancer when Sarah was only eleven years old. Her investigation, consisting of interviews with her Toronto family members aided by Super-8 home movies (60% of which are recreated using look-alike actors), uncovers family secrets that slowly begin to be revealed during the course of the film. Sarah not only directs the movie but also conducts the interviews with the storytellers that include her father, siblings and half-siblings, and close friends of her mother who all share their memories of Diana and what she meant to them in their lives.Though Sarah does not share her own feelings or thoughts, she does acknowledge that her bond with Michael and her four siblings grew closer after her mother's death. Polley comes from a family closely associated with the theater. Her mother was an actress as was her father Michael, who narrates the story from his written account of his memories. Family members are asked to "tell the story from the beginning until now," and they relate their recollection of Diana and how she affected their lives, their stories filled with emotion and sometimes tears. As the storytellers go on, it becomes clear that Diana was a free spirit who was a more complex person than at first imagined.Everyone's memories of Diana and the details of her life are somewhat different but, on the whole, they complement each other, each providing one more piece of the puzzle. One interesting aspect of the story is the long term close relationship Diana had with film producer Harry Gulkin, a former union organizer and left-wing activist, and how the consequences of their affair strongly impacted Sarah's life. Though the film talks about their affair as one that stemmed from Michael's inability to satisfy Diana on many levels, we do not really know Diana's own thoughts and feelings on the subject.As far as Gulkin is concerned, he does share his point of view but lets it be known that he is uncomfortable in the context of the film and that he feels the story should be his alone to tell. Although it may go on a bit longer than necessary, Stories We Tell is never less than fascinating and is especially noteworthy for its refusal to engage in mawkishness or sentimentality. Though there are differences in interpretation among the storytellers, the fact that Sarah's family remains supportive of each other after all the years is a testament to their resilience and mutual respect.Stories We Tell underscores the point that it is difficult to separate what actually happened from the story we tell about it, our interpretation of the event. What is not said, however, is that over time, the story may become the only reality we know. When that happens, we no longer have a story, but we become our story, a position that severely limits our ability to grow. Perhaps the film's greatest contribution is to suggest a process that other families can use to look at how their interpretations often get in the way of acknowledging the simple truth of what happened and allow them to see events in their life from a broader perspective.