MovieChat Forums > Stories We Tell (2013) Discussion > If you found out what Polley found out.....

If you found out what Polley found out... Would you investigate?

posted 11 years ago by sparks136
13 replies | jump to latest

*Spoilers*
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So she finds out her father may not be her father. She chose to further investigate and found out that her father was in fact a different man.

If the same thing happened to you, do you think you would investigate further?

I've talked to my parents and one of my friends about the movie and have gotten mixed responses.

Would you want to put your family through this? Would you want to put your parent in such a position?

Personally, I would be extremely curious but I don't know if I would go through with it. I wouldn't want to hurt the surviving parent.

I think I would personally have a right to know, but the implications could be huge for the surrounding family.

[–] JohnnyFairplay 11 years ago

Yeah.

[–] dcopeland4 11 years ago

Of course, it depends on the type of person your father is. Clearly, Sarah's father got some benefit from learning about this. I imagine he had intimations all along that this was the case, but he didn't have the courage or motivation to ask questions. But Sarah's bringing it to him in a sensitive way, made them closer, which he explicitly said made him feel closer to her.
This is one of the beauties of Sarah Polley's work: she makes explicit what many are afraid to bring out in the open. But in my experience as a psychologist, this usually--although not necessarily always--makes everyone feel better.
Because Polley was tactful and sensitive to everyone's feelings, this worked for her.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] buff-29 11 years ago

I once tried to write a fictional treatment of a story about my family, and when I thought as I wrote how angry my father and older brother would be with me if I published such a thing I began to sweat and tremble and had to stop writing, never to resume. Now, the publication was speculative at best, but still....So I guess you could say no, I would not investigate.

Chicken Memoirist.

[–] gortx 11 years ago

Curiosity would make me investigate, but, I wouldn't publish a story about it, nor, certainly make a film out of it.
If it works for Polley and her family, fine. I'm just way too private for that.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] izgebichi 11 years ago

Further investigate to find out that your own mother was a whore? Fock no! What sane person would prefer to reveal that?

[–] chillpillory 11 years ago

I agree.

What benefit could their be for the cuckolded father? He can put on a brave face, but no man wants to know that about his wife.

Our culture of therapy trumpets truthfulness and openness about everything, but that's paranoid mindset. Some things hurt more to know.

[–] chillpillory 11 years ago

oops. there. no sleep.

[–] acr267 11 years ago

It was family banter around the dinner table for years, just unmentioned as anything more then a superficial joke but well known to all. Hardly a shocking deep dark secret that shouldn't be investigated for fear of pain.

[–] jshoaf 11 years ago

I did, but not until I was 50 and my adoptive parents had been dead for quite a while. I am now even older and my biological parents are dead too, but at least I got to talk to them a bit about it all.

I dearly loved my adoptive parents and can't think of my biological parents as my Mom and Dad (somewhat to the distress of my new relatives!). But it meant a lot to me to have a chance to meet my biological father (who was 95 and did not know I existed at all).

One motivation is to find out what to expect in terms of health. Another, which I did not foresee and it seems Sarah did not either, is to find a new family, even if you already have a perfectly good one.

For Sarah, I think the stronger motive may have been to get to know her dead mother better. She missed out on having a mother in her teen years, when there is often a lot of conflict as the daughter tries to differentiate herself.

So far as her father is concerned, she clearly did her best to protect him for as long as she could, but he turned out to be a very strong person who could deal with it well and even find in it a source of creativity.

[–] rocko8 11 years ago

Yes, her father puts a very positive spin of the whole story, despite the fact that he's the one being betrayed in their marriage. The couple didn't communicate their problems with each other, and that is the core of the issue. Either you solve those problems in the way best you can, or you go on your separate ways. If a person really cares about his/her spouse, why would someone want to subject someone to that kind of pain by looking for love else where? If you notice that you don't care, separate. Infidelity can be very, very hurtful.

As for the first question. I don't think I would want to know. If I have a biological father I do not know, I would let sleeping dogs lie. My father in reality is the one who brought me up, spent time with me, it's not about where the DNA comes from.

[–] 11 years ago

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