![]() And their parents are, once again presumably, private patricians who cherish their solitude when they’re not entertaining crowds of people. They’re young men who get to live on their own and, presumably, come and go as they please. We like Alex, and we have no reason to question anything Marcus says, not even the fact that the brothers don’t have keys to their own home (preferring to live by themselves in a shed right outside) and that they’re not allowed into their father’s rooms even when they are permitted inside the manor. As a result, Alex awkwardly but comfortably eases back into his posh and pleasant life as the audience watches, enrapt. Perkins then shifts to Marcus’ perspective and sensitively illuminates each of his charming details with faded old photographs of the boys - sons of English aristocrats, as he explains - hanging out on a beach along with video footage of them celebrating birthdays and partying with friends. It becomes evident that the two had a very tight relationship. So Alex instantly trusts him to refill his memory with things about his life: their home, their friends, his girlfriend, his interests, and their relationship with their parents. Watch Video: Netflix Orders Selena Gomez-Produced Docuseries 'Living Undocumented' - Watch Trailer Here As traumatic as the event was, Alex remembers being comforted by the familiar face of his twin brother Marcus, whose uncanny resemblance provided the one area of certainty in his life. Through voiceover and in-person interviews, Perkins begins to unravel 55-year-old Alex Lewis’ shadowy past to the point where he can recall it in his own words - at age 18, as he’s waking up from a coma following a tragic motorcycle accident that resulted in him losing his memory. But then there is “Tell Me Who I Am,” which gradually unmasks a disturbing truth so resolutely and unnervingly that it requires no further dialogue, just recovery for both the audience and its central protagonist.ĭrawing from a startling real life story, director Ed Perkins plants audiences inside a film where mounting mystery climaxes to unsettling concern as we watch an amnesiac grapple with the horrifying reality that is his life.Īnd it all starts with deceit. Like the trailer says, everyone is a potential sleeper agent, drifting in the dark just waiting to pick up that cigarette and that sniper rifle.Documentaries often make us look at difficult facts in a way that provokes further conversation, action or interrogation. It makes you, in the audience, the secret identity. But the amnesiac spy trope is both bolder and sneakier. The dynamic is similar to superhero comics: Clark Kent exists so you can imagine that anyone can be Superman. ![]() But when you dim the lights you know that your real identity is up there, on the screen, killing people with a spoon. You, the viewer, may in your daily life take your kids to the ice-skating rink or sell stuff at a convenience store. Similarly, Charly is a cover story for every audience member. In The Long Kiss Goodnight, Sam the schoolteacher was originally a cover story for Charly Jason Bourne was originally a cover story for David. In amnesiac stories, the multiple-identity double and triple agents of spy novels become a metaphor for the audience, all of whom get to change identities, too. James Bond, Mission Impossible – whatever your franchise of choice, the pleasure is in identifying with some mysterious, ultra-competent, ultra-slick protagonist, whose body is a weapon.Īnd part of what he discovers is that he is mutliple identities Jason Bourne is also agent Cain and, somewhere down there, a guy named David. This is the central fantasy of all spy action thrillers. Sam is gleeful as she suddenly realizes that she can wield a brutally efficient knife while cutting vegetables in the kitchen – and what middle-class dull bourgeois, of whatever gender, wouldn’t like to take a week off to smoke cigarettes, change hairstyles, look hot and shoot some bad guys? The double identity is played in the film mostly for angst – but it’s also, clearly, an attraction. Sam is an amnesiac, and as she recovers her memory, she discovers that she is actually sexy superspy bad girl Charly Baltimore. In the 1996 film, Geena Davis plays suburban housewife Sam. I’ll be back … where am I again? Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstarīut the most direct precursor for American Ultra in the incongruous everyperson superspy sub-genre may be the The Long Kiss Goodnight.
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