Stories We Tell Reviews

Takes the proposition that reality is more dramatic than fiction and tests it out in a startlingly original, even head-spinning way.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Polley's documentary, Stories We Tell, attempts to unravel some of the mysteries of her own family's life, even as it stretches far beyond the confines of your standard navel-gazing autobiography.

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Polley has gone further into the thorny subject of forgiveness than any of her peers. Her movies ache with ethical quandary; Stories We Tell aches the most.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

This playful and elegiac documentary is wholly of a piece with Sarah Polley's fiction work, and just as rewarding.

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Canadian documentary skilfully deploys some ambitious creative gambits to explore the director's own family background.

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Polley has gone meta-exuberantly, entertainingly, with all her heart.

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[Stories We Tell] leaves you wondering about the nature of truth and wanting to know more about the hidden lives of those around us.

Full Review | Original Score: B

The film is oscillating from intriguing to dull, revealing to repetitious, frank to disingenuous, and moving to manipulative.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Sarah Polley's brave quest to uncover her family's deepest secrets unfolds like a thriller, one where the resolution is literally part of her DNA.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Tthe probing, emotionally devastating documentary that was, for this critic and many others, the revelation of the first week of the Venice Film Festival."

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