Just saw this - one BIG issue

I think she's referring to emotional truths and ownership - who does this story belong to? Is it hers, as the daughter? Michael Polley, as the husband and father who raised her? Her biological father? I think the consistency you refer to is primarily because Polley sought to provide a space for everyone to tell their story, the one they shared with Diane Polley.

It's not about facts, it's about perceived roles and the core of who these people are even when their roles and perhaps identities shift. She did not seek to assign those roles but rather allowed everyone to assert them.

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What film were you watching? I think you need to go back and watch it again.

"there are absolutely no differing perspectives about her mom's character" - sorry, wrong.

"No one disagrees about anything" - again, wrong.

"she just reinforces the false notion that everyone is telling a different version" - again, wrong.

There were a myriad of minute details that differed. Individually these all appear insignificant, but once combined they result in revealing and highlighting how markedly different everybody's perspective, understanding, final beliefs and resulting point of view actually are.

It's all in the subtleties. Pay attention!

For me it wasn't true that everyone agreed. It was the story of how a "great romance" happens while all the kids just see "mom" and how the children, even when they are adults still don't know what happened with their mother having an adult life and the lover didn't see her as a mother or have any idea of what it would actually be like to live with her so in the end the kids had the normal delusions we all have about our parents and the lover was living in a fantasy in love with a woman who probably didn't really exist.

I'm a huge fan of Sarah's, going back to Avonlea (had to edit it for the cable station I worked at), especially her directorial work. She's clearly talented and is here again. (SPOILER) However, she is so close to the material, that's it hard for her to be objective. Don't get me wrong, it's very thorough and the story is fascinating but it's simply way too long, at least 30 mins. The ending was like Return of the King. Also I felt a bit uncomfortable with her unwillingness to allow others to tell the story, yet she could tell it the way she saw fit. Isn't the entire point that stories are ours to tell? Also agree with other comments that there wasn't any real disagreeing in their version of Diana. Perhaps that's another point, that there wasn't much conflict at all, that each had vested interests and that Diana was portrayed as some sort of Godly figure. (The Glorious Dead). She cheated on her husband. No one had a bad word to say about that? It lacked some objectivity. A good documentary but not a great one.

Mostly I just wanted to say that nearly all of the comments here echoed the discussion my wife and I had after watching the film. It's a good film, but neither of us saw radically different versions of the Sarah's mother.

There have been fantastic comments here too that pointed out other possibilities and I appreciate that. Reading them reminded me of being in film school and analyzing a film we'd just seen. I miss that. Some really sharp eyes and minds here on IMDB writing here.

For our part, we both thought it was odd that we didn't get a tiny bit more information about the Cancer that killed her, but that was probably intentional by Sarah. Still would have liked a bit more.

While I loved the twist at the end when we realize that all of the home movies have been filmed recently and played by actors, it created an odd level of mistrust for us. We weren't really sure what we had just seen. It wasn't until going to IMDB that we had total confirmation that we hadn't just seen the Blair Witch. Ah.... That really was Sarah and her family being interviewed and only the flash backs were fictional. But for a few moments, we weren't sure. I wonder if that was intentional on her part.

While, again, I'm sure it was a choice on Sarah's part not to do this, we would have enjoyed at least a photo of the REAL mother, and maybe a few real family shots. Similar to what I mention above, was the photo that Harry pulled out of his drawer really Sarah and her mother? In a film like this, there is no way to know. It affects how much empathy I feel after the big reveal and perhaps some bonafide shots of just the true, historical people would have eased that.

I don't mind long endings and often prefer them over a film that ends too quickly, but I think they should add something new. There were a few more reveals there, but I agree the consensus here that at least 10 minutes could have been shaved from the end. The best part was when the guy who was just her "friend," finally confessed they did sleep together on "one" occasion. That was pretty funny and would have really been a twist if they had not done the genetic testing.

Thanks again for thoughts many of your have posted here. I really needed to hear more on this and other points.

Yup.

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