The nature vs. nurture debate gets new scrutiny in The accidental twins (now on Netflix), a Spanish-language documentary that delves into a switch-at-birth saga involving two sets of twins in Colombia who… well, we’ll talk about that in a second here, and… It’s pretty wacky. Director Alessandro Angulo sits down with all the parties involved, examines a can of worms that has remained closed for 25 years, and the story he finds is undeniably fascinating.
THE ACCIDENTAL TWINS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “It’s the kind of experiment that scientists dream of, but could never ethically perform,” a psychologist says during the opening preview montage. Juicy! We meet Jorge, born in 1988 and raised in Bogotá with his twin Carlos. In 2014, Laura, Jorge’s friend and co-worker, saw him working in a butcher shop, but contrary to her assumption that she had a secret second job, that man was not Jorge. He was his double. Curious, they found the butcher on Facebook and began browsing photos of him. Now, before we continue, keep in mind that this is a documentary, not some crazy Cronenberg or Lynch thriller, so there is a perfectly reasonable, if unlikely, explanation for all of this, even with the big reveal I’m about to make. indulge: Jorge found a photo of his double sitting next to him Carlos double. Mind. Spoiled.
Now, Jorge has a reputation for being a joker, but he wasn’t joking when he showed the photo to his more serious and sheltered brother Carlos. Now, here’s a perfect example of the brothers’ significantly different personalities: Jorge wanted to get close to the doubles and solve this mystery; Carlos preferred to leave it that way. They both have a legitimate reason, but the way I see it, once the truth has been squeezed out, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Jorge ignored Carlos’s wishes and called the double, William, to explain the situation and arrange a meeting. That night, on the sidewalk in front of a church in Bogotá, Jorge met William and it was like looking in a mirror. And next to William was Wilber, the spitting image of Carlos. They walked to Carlos’s apartment. Struck. He didn’t want to open the door. But he finally did it. The world is the world and the truth is the truth and there is no way to avoid either of them.
From here, Angulo reconstructs what the hell happened and what happened next. In a hospital in Bogotá, during the holidays in 1988, an accidental baby exchange occurred between two sets of identical twins. No one knows for sure how: most likely an identification bracelet was lost and a procedural error occurred, a legitimate error, not misconduct. There are some additional convolutions here, but these are the essence of this extraordinary story. And then you start thinking about the legal ramifications, if there are any. And the psychological consequences, involving family members who may have thought that their siblings and children were a little different from the rest of the family, but who never imagined that a scenario like this in which the truth is stranger than the Fiction would explain it. And the analytical end of this, which arises from the fact that Jorge and Carlos were raised in the urban bustle of Bogotá by a single mother, and William and Wilber were raised 12 hours away, in the remote countryside near the small town of La Paz , with a larger family. family. Is this a happy or sad story? I’ll go out on a limb and answer: that’s a question that seems silly. Both can be true. It also depends on how you look at it, and maybe it also depends on your genetic makeup and the environment you grew up in.
What movies will it remind you of?: The 2018 Oscar-nominated documentary Three identical strangers tells a similar story, although much more worrying.
Performance worth seeing: The four “brothers” bravely open up about some of the joy, fear and apprehension they felt during their reunion a decade ago; Carlos, especially, shares his feelings, is not afraid to be vulnerable and shows himself to be an endearing, classic personality, tough on the outside and soft on the inside.
Memorable dialogue: Wilber offers words of reassurance to the brother he grew up with: “The only words I could find were these: ‘William, you are my brother until death, and that is one thing that will never change.'” â€
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: Is The accidental twins A sorry tale of cruel and twisted fate? Or a happy story of a family that expanded unexpectedly? The latter seems to be true, as the documentary mostly plays out in an important tone, while also touching on the more problematic elements of this saga, e.g., feelings of guilt, indulgences of what-if/what-could-have-been scenarios . and William’s sadness at learning that he would never meet his biological mother, since she passed away a few years before the big reunion. Angulo does not treat the narrative as a therapy session for these men and their families, and if there are significant conflicts between them, they are assumed to be inevitable; Apparently that’s a universal truth for all families: they don’t talk about them on camera. The film therefore avoids being exploitative or intrusive, which required a delicate touch on the part of Angulo, who deftly captures the seriousness of his subjects.
If there’s any criticism to be made here, it’s that the film is more maudlin than analytical, and doesn’t follow the “experiment scientists dream of” angle in much detail. But Angulo does his due diligence, interviewing a journalist who reported on the brothers’ story, asking a lawyer about the legal repercussions, tracking down the nurses who worked in the neonatal unit that night, and talking to psychologists and geneticists in search of superficial and superficial information. scientific level. The answers he gets aren’t always satisfactory, but that’s life, right? The director could have delved a little deeper into the weeds of the nature-versus-nurture debate, but his decision to maintain an emotional, comforting approach is ultimately uplifting: Jorge, William, Carlos, and Wilber are all good people. They came together under strange circumstances and seem to be making the best of it. Yeah The accidental twins has something to say, it is that there is always room in the human heart for another person, or family, to love.
Our call: In less scrupulous hands, the history of The accidental twins It could have been an exploitative soap opera (like, frankly, too many documentaries on Netflix). Rather, it is moving and quietly inspiring, the work of an optimist. TRANSMIT IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
