Tim Wardle’s spry, endlessly watchable documentary about a set of identical triplets adopted by three different families begins with a happy ending. Eddy, Robert and David reconnected in their early 20s in a New York flush with new money; the handsome trio shared a bachelor pad, started a business (a steakhouse in SoHo called Triplets) and even made a cameo in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan.
Although the story of the brothers’ separation isn’t a secret – the film is based on a 1995 New Yorker article (which its author, Lawrence Wright, later turned into a book) – Wardle tells it as a mystery, and a troubling manipulation of nature. It would be unfair to reveal too much, but the film’s narrative twists and turns are expertly placed, curdling the boys’ joyous reunion into something more sinister.
