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The Imposter

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United Kingdom · 2012
Rated R · 1h 39m
Director Bart Layton
Starring Frédéric Bourdin, Adam O'Brian, Anna Ruben, Cathy Dresbach
Genre Documentary, Mystery

In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later, he is found alive thousands of miles away in a village in southern Spain. His family is overjoyed to bring him home, but all is not quite as it seems...

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What are people saying?

Ricardo Rico Profile picture for Ricardo Rico

The Imposter is a documentary but it plays more like a psychological thriller. As the film goes on and the lies and deception unravel, it's incredible how every unbelievable twist manages to one-up the previous one. Good documentaries like these remind us that truth really is stranger than fiction.

What are critics saying?

80

Variety by

The Imposter makes slick work of its wily subject, using atmospheric reenactments and stark, soul-baring interviews to explore a mind-boggling case of false identity.

80

Time Out by Joshua Rothkopf

Blessed with an improbable-but-true story that functions on many ironic levels, this clever documentary ultimately conveys more about the complex American character - shifting between intimacy and criminality - than a whole shelf of fiction films.

70

Village Voice by Michael Atkinson

Thick with reenactments and cute cutaways, the movie evolves into a cultural inquisition, following this stranger through the strange land of bad-news America, where the truth is still waiting to be exhumed.

63

Slant Magazine by Nick Schager

The film shrewdly opts not to proffer its own hypothesis about the true reasons behind the Gibson family buying Frédéric Bourdin's story.

83

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

The Imposter strings the audience along, to get them to understand first-hand how easy it is to buy into a well-told story, even when there's no evidence to support it.

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