If you have not already seen the film, skip this review. There will be many spoilers.
It's a well-made film on an interesting topic, but it's annoyingly repetitive and it raises more questions than it answers.
Questions like: Even though the "mad scientist" at the centre of the scheme is dead, and his results are sealed, the filmakers managed to track down and interview two of his research assistants. Yet they seem to have made no attempt to track down any of the former employees of the (now closed) adoption agency. Why is that? Could it be that they did track them down, but are suppressing their interviews because they don't fit the agenda of the film?
The boys' wives and adopted parents are all interviewed. All three boys had older adopted sisters, but they make no appearance in the film. Why is that? Again, I get suspicious that we're being manipulated.
The point is raised that most or all the birth mothers in the twin study had mental problems. But there is no attempt to see if other birth mothers, not in the study, also had problems. Birth control and abortion were widely available to American girls at the time. My guess is that most non-Catholic girls who didn't use them would have had a few loose screws.
The boys and their parents are shocked by the discovery that they were part of a research study, and the professor who conducted it (himself a Holocaust survivor) is treated like some sort of successor to the Nazi Dr Mengele. But what exactly did he do that was so evil? Nobody would have adopted triplets (despite one of the adoptive fathers saying - 20 years later - that he would have.) So they needed to be separated. All he did was not tell them that they had siblings.
The question of the influence of nature vs nurture on who we are is even more relevant today than when the boys were born. We are not allowed even to hint at the possibility of racial differences. The professor's results might have made a big contribution to the discussion. I wonder why he had to seal them?
It's a well-made film on an interesting topic, but it's annoyingly repetitive and it raises more questions than it answers.
Questions like: Even though the "mad scientist" at the centre of the scheme is dead, and his results are sealed, the filmakers managed to track down and interview two of his research assistants. Yet they seem to have made no attempt to track down any of the former employees of the (now closed) adoption agency. Why is that? Could it be that they did track them down, but are suppressing their interviews because they don't fit the agenda of the film?
The boys' wives and adopted parents are all interviewed. All three boys had older adopted sisters, but they make no appearance in the film. Why is that? Again, I get suspicious that we're being manipulated.
The point is raised that most or all the birth mothers in the twin study had mental problems. But there is no attempt to see if other birth mothers, not in the study, also had problems. Birth control and abortion were widely available to American girls at the time. My guess is that most non-Catholic girls who didn't use them would have had a few loose screws.
The boys and their parents are shocked by the discovery that they were part of a research study, and the professor who conducted it (himself a Holocaust survivor) is treated like some sort of successor to the Nazi Dr Mengele. But what exactly did he do that was so evil? Nobody would have adopted triplets (despite one of the adoptive fathers saying - 20 years later - that he would have.) So they needed to be separated. All he did was not tell them that they had siblings.
The question of the influence of nature vs nurture on who we are is even more relevant today than when the boys were born. We are not allowed even to hint at the possibility of racial differences. The professor's results might have made a big contribution to the discussion. I wonder why he had to seal them?