Review of The Imposter (2012) by Reid V — 11 Jan 2013

The Imposter is a seductress. It seduces the innate human desire to construct a narrative; to find an explanation in the explicable.

When a young boy vanishes from his San Antonio home in 1994, an itinerant youth from Spain swindles his way into the clutches of the grieving family. Cunning, enigmatic, Frédéric Bourdin claims to be the missing boy in order to fill a void in his own life. On top of this, he soon finds out that his presence allows the family to mend. Even in the face, pun intended, of overwhelming evidence, the grief-stricken family chooses to believe the impossible.

At times director Bart Layton feels like a more manipulative Errol Morris; painting a portrait of the peripheral while simultaneously using the material to tease out rather invasive implications for the viewer at home. With this film, Layton allows the audience to look at the family with sympathetic contempt for buying Bourdin's story, all while fastening on new theories that dupe us into creating whatever version of the story gives us the most satisfaction. Layton does so by blending interviews with reenactments, a tool that I usually find obnoxious, but is wisely done here.

The film itself is akin to an elaborate con. The talent behind the ruse is uncanny. And even though the viewer may feel robbed due to the lack of clarification that the film offers, one cannot help but be in awe of the masterful manipulation.