6. The Imposter (2012)
I shudder at the idea of a family member disappearing. The pain associated with the loss and hopeful search is hard to fathom. The searching may be the worst part. Anytime it is in the media, some little old lady can be heard quietly lamenting, that poor family. When the impossible happens and the person is found, the world smiles with the family, unless of course they find the wrong person. Thirteen-year-old Nicholas Barclay disappeared on June 13, 1994. He was playing basketball in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas (damn a lot of crap goes on in Texas), and he just never came home. Three years later, the Barclay family got the phone call they had only dreamed of; Nicholas had been found in Spain. Only, it wasnt Nicholas. Frédéric Bourdin, a French born confidence man, in a perfect storm of coincidence and desperation claimed to be the lost boy and went on to fool the police and the Barclay family, despite his French accent and staggeringly different appearance. Just in case you didnt get the gist of this. This film tells the TRUE story of a dark-haired, brown-eyed French man that successfully impersonated a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Texan boy. Thats not a joke, thats for real. It would be too easy to get caught up in the absolutely mindboggling qualities of this story, but the film pushes past these numerous potential pitfalls. It becomes less of a question of why Bourdin did this and more of how it took so long for someone to cry foul. Bourdin comes across as some kind of cartoon villain that inflicts harm without a care and becomes so wrapped up in his own ruse that he begins to lose himself.
The Imposter is thrilling to watch, crafting numerous mysteries in its coherent telling of an altogether confusing story.