Continuing the trend so-crazy-they-have-to-be-real documentaries, Netflix’s new film “Tell Me Who I Am” tracks the repercussions of a motorcycle accident and the amnesiac that emerges from the crash. Alex Lewis, the central focus, awakens in the hospital only able to remember his twin brother, not even recognizing his mother right next to him. So begins Ed Perkins’ mysterious new film, a cryptic exploration of twin brothers, Alex, who literally forgets his entire life post-crash, and Marcus, who helps him reconstruct his memory.
Yet what initially begins as a story of a fraternal bond quickly pivots into a nuanced look into the role of memory and its effects on reconstructing traumatic experiences. While limited in scope, and featuring perhaps one too many sinister ‘reenactments’, the film is a complex look at how memory shapes our perceptions of individuals within the present.
For those who want to keep this mystery intact, it is best to stop now and just watch the film. Part of “Tell Me Who I Am’s” allure is the constantly shifting mystery, as Perkins divides his film into three acts. The first has Alex recounting his recovery, followed by Marcus’s own ‘rewriting’ of that recovery story, and ending on the brothers’ eventual meet-up. Within this structure, Perkins, and the brothers, revisit scenes through different perspectives, changing our own understanding of the brother’s lives.
Intermixing talking heads, with dramatic recreations, Alex and Marcus recount their odd familial structure. Not allowed to have keys to their own house, and forced to live in the shed after they turned 14, Their parents are so detached that their father will only shake Alex’s hand when he returns from the hospital. Their mother, on the other hand, is portrayed as a socialite who always packed the house for parties, but refuses to show her children any attention.
What quickly emerges is that as Marcus is the only person Alex remembers, he begins to rely on him for all his memories. Yet with Alex’s blank slate, Marcus sees an opportunity to construct a life that the twins never had, as he invents a fictional childhood, one filled with vacations and a sense of normality that was so clearly lacking in reality. As Marcus himself says, the need to create this fiction was just as much about escaping for himself as it was to protect Alex. This fiction continues well into Alex’s thirties, as both their parents die, and the long buried secrets of their upbringing come to life.
Well before Marcus reveals their parent’s backgrounds, and the memories that he has kept from Alex, the viewer can probably guess where the movie is going. It’s no twist that Marcus’s shame is rooted in abuse. Yet Perkins does well to provide equal time to both Alex and Marcus, fleshing out the reasoning that either needs to know or repress their childhoods. That tension comes to a head in a quietly reflective third act, in which Alex and Marcus sit down with each other and try to make sense of how Marcus distorted Alex’s memory and if it was the right thing to do.
The film’s structure, effectively, doubles back on itself, often recasting events through perspectives, and illuminating how much memory plays a role in how we perceive people in the present. In one instant, as their father lays dying, Marcus refuses to forgive him, confounding Alex, who only sees him as a distant but nonetheless decent man. Only when Marcus is given perspective do the events begin to take shape.
As such, “Tell Me Who I Am” is a heavily curated viewing experience, one that purposely withholds information. This is even more troubled by the fact that Alex and Marcus Lewis wrote a book that confronts these same issues in 2013, yet Perkins’s film frames their eventual third-act meet up as their first time talking through their shared abuse. Does this diminish from the experience? Not exactly, but the film is often overt in its emotional manipulation. Added to this is the heavy use of blue-tinged reenactments, creating an eerie atmosphere as Alex discusses the hopefully family life that Marcus has created for him.
Even with this structure, “Tell Me Who I Am” is fascinating, mainly for what it implies about coping mechanisms and the role of memory in dealing with abuse. Throughout, Alex knows something is amiss with his parents, yet he cannot pinpoint the exact cause of his unease. Despite Marcus’s attempts to fictionalize an idealized childhood, the lingering effects of trauma continue to seep into their relationship, and the truth eventually needs to come out. In that third-act confrontation, we can see two equally compelling perspectives try to work out how to deal with their pasts. While “Tell Me Who I Am” doesn’t offer any real answers about the role of memory in coping with abuse, it does bring up fascinating questions. [B+]