If Three Identical Strangers were a book, it would be the kind of page-turner that you devour in a single weekend. Unlike most paperback potboilers, though, Three Identical Strangers’ bizarre, emotional rollercoaster lingers with you—and not merely because it all actually happened. Tim Wardle’s documentary ends up taking viewers to a very dark place, and, even as it remains a compulsively watchable and digestible experience, it refuses to offer the kind of clear-cut resolution we demand from mysteries.
All of this makes Three Identical Strangers an easy film to recommend but a difficult one to summarize. Its twists and turns, from euphoric highs to shattering lows, are best experienced knowing as little as possible, so I should be careful. Or maybe I’m making too big a deal out of it: Many of the events in the movie are public knowledge—some were big news in their day—and there’s even another documentary, Lori Shinseki’s The Twinning Reaction, that covers much of the same ground (a chunk of it aired in March on 20/20).