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The Imposter, Movie

The Imposter 2012

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Deception comes home.

Documentary thriller unravelling the mysterious, legendary French con artist Frédéric Bourdin and his most famous coup: convincing authorities and a victim's family that he is a 16-year-old American boy who had gone missing three years earlier. Says Bourdin: "From as long as I can remember, I wanted to be someone else. Someone acceptable". More

In 1994 a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later he is found alive, thousands of miles away in a village in Southern Spain with a story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems. The boy bears many of the same distinguishing marks he always had, but why does he now have a strange accent? Why does he look so different? And why doesn't the family seem to notice these glaring inconsistencies? It's only when an investigator starts asking questions that this strange tale takes an even stranger turn… Hide

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33 votes / 2 comments The Talk

  • 82 %

    Want to See it

    What say you?

    • Andrew

      Heard a lot of good things about this one.

    • Wendy

      Its bad enough losing a child, but to have someone pretend to be your child and for what, that's the scarey part

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Flicks.co.nz Review

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Aaron Yap Flicks Writer

Few films in the past year have matched the narrative cunning of Bart Layton’s captivating true-crime documentary The Imposter. Perhaps only next to Craig Zobel’s Compliance in its ability to generate disbelieving cries of “oh COME on” from viewers (though the latter has a distancing layer of being completely dramatised), The Imposter’s scintillating, chillingly suspenseful account of how Frenchman Frédéric Bourdin passed himself off as the missing child of a Texan family will leave your jaw hanging at every turn. More

Alternating between slickly cinematic reenactments and standard talking heads, the doco benefits from having Bourdin on camera imparting his own story with fast-talking, cocky charisma that leaves no room for remorse. Like a true con-man, he reels us in immediately: from his sly, quick-thinking deception of the police in Spain all the way to San Antonio, where he bizarrely found himself accepted - despite speaking with a thick French accent and not looking a damn thing like him - as Nicholas Barclay, a boy who had been missing for 3 years.

The Imposter is such deftly constructed storytelling that it’s easy to forget that at the very centre of this yarn is a family devastated by a devious crime. But the injection of an ambiguous third-act twist proves the film not only to be a psychologically astute study of identity and deception but also perception. Our doubts as to why Barclay’s family would take in an apparent stranger eventually morph into an acknowledgement that we’re all equally susceptible to believing anything in any given context. Hide

The People's Reviews

Rating:

8 ratings and 8 reviews

All reviews (8)

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You couldn't make this up.

Apple-Man Wannabe (?)

One of those docs where you can hardly belive the story as it unfolds - truly strange and compelling. Well put together, to know too much about the story before watching would ruin it. Recommended.

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Good. See it.

AliasAlli B-Grader (?)

From the moment it starts, you know The Imposter is going to be revelatory.

Of course, you KNOW he's a con-man. You KNOW he gets caught. But none of that makes any difference as you're literally gasping at the audacity of this man and his actions.

Despite that, Bourdin is a charming and excellent storyteller. And, as often happens, you start rooting for him instead of the family he infiltrates.

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A tribute to human gullibility

Weds_Loafers Flicks Superstar (?)

Yesterday 5 of us saw "The Imposter", the true story of a French conman who, at the age of 23, successfully impersonated a missing American teenager who he bore no resemblance to, and became a member of the family (despite English being his second language). At the time (1997) the teenager would have been just 16. The film is not kind to the boy's family and leaves you constantly wondering how the family could be so gullible. A late twist gives rise to speculation on why that may have been so. The boy's mother, who seems a sandwich or two short of a picnic, actually says at one point "My main goal in life at that time was not to think." This is both an entertaining and interesting film but none of us could rate it higher than 3 stars. Our average - 2.5 stars - a rating which implies only go and see it if you are really interested in the story.

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3.5 Stars

queenbee007 A-Lister (?)

This was interesting and bizarre. The family was odd and it leaves you wondering if they had a part to play in the boys disappearance. Perhaps they are all very good liars. The mother passed the polygraph twice after all...

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Spellbinding Doco with knobs on!

filmlover Flicks Superstar (?)

This documentary ticks all the boxes and leaves you wanting to know more. I knew something of the story of this guy which is why I went. But I got way more than I bargained for. I defy anyone who loves a good yarn not to be captivated by this twisted tale of the truly weird.
In some ways it asks more questions than it answers. Go with a group and then gather to deconstruct the story.

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Outstanding Cutting-Edge Cinema

piscesnz Wannabe (?)

This documentary deserves to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for science. It single-handedly does more to advance the fight against insomnia than any drugs developed by pharmaceutical companies.

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Too incredible to be fiction

Hannah-Carter A-Lister (?)

The Imposter is a debut film from Bart Layton, a documentary featuring interviews with the subjects themselves and footage from the time expertly spliced with dramatisation.

The story is too incredible to be fiction. In 1994, a 13 year old Texan boy Nicholas Barclay disappears without a trace. In 1997, Frederic Bourdin, a homeless French man in Spain, claims to be the missing Nicholas. Frederic manages to dupe both the Spanish and American officials, and (perhaps) Nicholas' family, notwithstanding the massive physical differences between the two boys.

We are told of the deception at the beginning of the movie. Frederic talks us through how he managed to pull it all off, explaining the motive behind his deceit as a sort of necessity arising from the fact that he didn't have a family or support. We subsequently discover that he has a long record of impersonating various different children (which continued after 1997), I wonder if, had he been successful in impersonating Nicholas for the long run, he would have been satisfied in that life. It seems he was addicted to impersonating others.

The impersonation is eventually (although not as quickly as we would expect) uncovered by the FBI. A private investigator comes into the picture asking why the Barclay family so easily accepted Frederic as their son. This thread is not resolved during the movie itself, but just raising the question was an interesting twist that I didn't see coming.

Layton and producer Dimitri Doganis won the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, of which they are very deserving. This is a fantastic documentary which had me interested and entertained throughout. The film intertwines dramatisations and interviews in a novel and exciting way.

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Press Reviews

Empire (UK)

The year's most fascinating and frightening doc so far, The Imposter delves far beneath the hysterical tabloid headlines. Full review.

Rolling Stone (USA)

A movie that offers hard speculation and harder truths. You won't be able to get it out of your head. Full review.

Time Out New York

Blessed with an improbable-but-true story that functions on many ironic levels, this clever documentary ultimately conveys more about the complex American character - shifting between intimacy and criminality - than a whole shelf of fiction films. Full review.

Total Film (UK)

Creepier than "Catfish" and as cinematic as "Man On Wire," this is an unnerving story immaculately told and a strong contender for documentary of the year. Full review.

Variety (USA)

The Imposter makes slick work of its wily subject, using atmospheric reenactments and stark, soul-baring interviews to explore a mind-boggling case of false identity. Full review.

Hollywood Reporter

That old idiom about truth being stranger than fiction is an understatement when applied to Bart Layton’s enthralling documentary. Full review.

New York Times

Slippery, manipulative, unstable and smoothly confounding. One of the most entertaining documentaries to appear since Exit Through the Gift Shop... Full review.