Le caméléon

We can never be sure about dramatised true stories because tricks are played on our memories even as we try to retell with accuracy. This story of a character who is unlikely to be who he claims to be from the start is as much about doubts as it is about rebuilding hopes. From the opening shots of a body hunt through to the final frames this film attempts to tackle the driving forces of all the characters who make up the plot by showing up flaws and how all of us are sometimes drawn to papering over cracks in our thoughts.

The film is quite clever in raising doubt in our minds because every player seems flawed from Fortin/Randall (Grondin), through Kimberly (Barkin), to Johnson (Janssen) as an FBI agent who seems to have no doubts. Perhaps a clumsy unevenness in the screenplay sometimes makes following the story a little less taut than it should be, but I could not fault the quality of the acting.

Even a family torn apart by an undisclosed tragedy seem very adept at keeping things as they are when redemption is a possibility but the actual interaction between them is not well rehearsed in this script. Too much focus is perhaps played on the mother's relationship with her "son" when there was perhaps a lot of mileage elsewhere.

I would guess many people would want a more commercial ending to a film like this and that has probably detracted from it popularity since it does stick to events as they happened but for me the real let down, having such a great cast, was a failure to grasp the real guts of the story and perhaps reveal a little more of what really may have happened.

Seven out of ten for acting from a fine cast.