Stories We Tell

Take This Waltz) has turned her camera on her own family by interviewing various relatives and friends to ask about their memories of her mother, Diane, during the time before Sarah was born. Sarah’s mother died when she was eleven. The story of Diane includes lots of heartbreak, for her and her family, and a sense of mystery about her life – was she happy? Did she have a secret life? This is a family that carries deep wounds, but that also shares great affection for each other and for Diane.

I won’t give away a central storyline involving a revelation for Sarah that unfolds onscreen through the interviews and the use of various recreations, including faux home movie footage and the reading of emails. While watching the film, I wasn’t sure whether the videos were real and it wasn’t until the closing credits that it became clear that actors were involved in the recreations. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the themes of the variability of memory are well-served by the film. What is real when everyone remembers events differently? Can we ever truly know someone?

Like so many creative works, this film is about the living and the dead – the huge toll that losing a parent/spouse takes on families, the complicated relationships between family members, sadness and joy. Stories We Tell is an intensely personal look into the filmmakers’ life and it is like no other film I have seen.