Review of The Imposter (2012) by James O — 24 Mar 2014

This is a staggering "if we made it up, noone would believe us" kind of tale. A blond-haired, blue-eyed Texan teenager disappears, seemingly without trace, only to apparently resurface more than three years later in Spain, telling a savage tale of kidnap and abuse.

Except he's not the same boy. He's not American for a start. He speaks with a heavy French accent. He's dark-haired and olive-skinned. He's not even a teenager. We know all this because Frederic Bourdin is our (unreliable) narrator for much of the film, describing in chilling and astonishing detail what happened.

Then the family arrive to collect their long-lost son. And that's when it starts getting really weird.

This has so many unbelievable twists that it's really hard to understand how it happened. But the twists keep coming up to the final moments of the film. If I'm honest, the end did leave me a bit deflated, but that's only because the previous 90 minutes had been so utterly gripping and occasionally jaw-dropping. Highly recommended.