Three Identical Strangers is a movie about triplets who were separated at birth and grew up in completely different households. When one of the triplets arrives at his first day of college, people he had never met seem to recognize him. He suddenly runs into someone who looks like a mirror-image of him and discovers that they were twins separated at birth. The press gets involved and many news articles are written about them. A young man sees this article and is shocked because he has the same birthday as the two twins and he is also adopted. “I think I may be the third,” he says. Once he talks to the twins and they all realize that the three of them are brothers, they become inseparable. The movie shows clips of them on talk shows together, spending time together, and even buying an apartment together. Later on, the movie takes a couple of turns, which kept me on my toes.

    In general I liked how the movie was organized. I thought there was a nice combination of interview-style narration, clips from the past, and staged-scenes made specifically for the movie. It was sequential: I thought the movie was in a chronological order that made it simple to follow even though the story is complex. I also liked how the music matched the tone of the movie. There were a lot of aspects of these three lives that evoked different emotions, and the music instilled this. I thought the style of film was unique because in the interviews they weren’t focused on the rule of thirds. They would either be zoomed in fairly close to the interviewees face or they would have the person in the center of the shot. I liked this because I think it made watching the interviewees talk more interesting, and again, it set the tone. There were very few aspects I didn’t like. I didn’t like the use of the ken burns zoom on some of the old photos. When used right, the zoom adds a nice effect, but I think in Three Identical Strangers it was kind of cheesy. I also wish that the filmmakers included some perspective of the triplets’ biological parents, rather than their adopted parents and spouses.

    Overall, I would recommend this movie. I think it is a nice length – less than two hours – and it is engaging the entire time. It is suitable for people of any age to watch, although it does get slightly dark. I think people above the age of fourteen are most capable of handling it and taking important information away from it. It is a great movie to watch if you are interested in psychology, because it discusses the psychology behind identical siblings and nature vs. nurture. So not only is it a fascinating story, but there is science supporting it. There is a question of ethics that left me curious and disturbed. It is a mixture of heartwarming, heartbreaking, shocking, and eye-opening. It was well-written and well-researched, and it is worth the watch!