Successful in both subject matter and filmmaking technique, Twinsters is a highly enjoyable documentary feature telling a truly remarkable story in the most affable of ways.
Director Samantha Futerman works primarily as an actress in LA. Adopted by a white family in Los Angeles, Sam was born in South Korea and has lived what by all appearances seems to be a blessed and happy life with her parents and two brothers. Unconditionally loved and accepted, Sam comes across as somewhat of a typical valley girl, giggly, kind-hearted, and full of life. Her acting projects range from roles in big studio films like Memoirs Of A Geisha all the way to comedic YouTube videos with friends. Oh, and about those YouTube videos…
One day Sam is contacted with a bizarre message, prompting her to take seriously a friend request on Facebook from a mutual friend. It turns out someone in France had seen one of Samantha’s YouTube videos and had been shocked to see an eerie resemblance to a friend of his. Long story short, Sam accepts a friend request from an Anais Bordier, and both of their worlds get rocked.
Also bubbly, creatively inclined, and born in Korea on the exact same day as Sam, Anais was adopted by a French family and is living in London and attending fashion school. The two look so similar and share such an immediate bond that the drama of whether or not they are long lost twins is the least of the film’s charms. Rather, these two incredibly likeable souls become eminently watchable as they form a unique new bond, that of twin sisters who didn’t even know the other existed, and this forms the core of the film.
Twinsters offers meaningful and potent exploration of several themes. A story about the ways technology can connect us in 2015, everything about Twinsters is somewhat miraculous. It isn’t lost on anyone in the film that the internet provided the avenue for these two to connect. Also a clearly pro-adoption narrative is spun as we learn about the strong love that both Sam and Anais were shown by their adoptive families throughout their lives. While Sam and Anais’ birth mother is in a place in her life where she isn’t even willing to acknowledge that she had children at all, much less that she gave birth to twins, we see that her choice to put her children up for adoption yielded rich lives for two wonderful girls. Twinsters also offers insight into the process of adoption and the history of adoption practices in Korea in particular. As Anais and Sam travel to meet one another, share research into their pasts, and form a frankly incredible bond in a short period of time, they dig into their own stories and re-connect with their Korean roots in a way neither of them would likely have undertaken on their own.
So the thematic content is thought-provoking and engaging, but the editing and documentary storytelling is also top notch. The movie never quite pulls back the curtain to show us how Samantha decided she would film all of this as it was developing, or how she decided to turn this story into a feature length documentary. As viewers, we just simply have access to the story as it develops, through recorded Skype sessions between the two (including their very first conversation), video blogs, and hundreds and hundreds of text messages. This is 2015 after all, and these are twenty somethings. And on that note, Sam and Anais’ personalities come across in the energy of the film. The animations, music, editing, and on screen graphics all have a light hearted and girly feel to them, which is absolutely perfect for these girls’ stories. Futerman and co-director Ryan Miyamoto capture every conversation and moment that viewers need in order to feel highly invested in this reunion story, and then edited it all together into a joy-filled celebration of re-connection, nature-versus-nurture, and the bond of kinship.
It isn’t all giggles and smiles. As the two become genuine friends and grow past some of the initial novelty of their story, they begin to discuss their pasts more openly. Anais, it turns out, was raised an only child and had a harder time reconciling her Korean heritage with her French upbringing. She felt something missing from her life without ever knowing she had a twin sister out in the world somewhere. Whereas Sam had brothers her whole life and struggled very little with her own past and circumstances. The two work together to piece together their own story and how they came about being separated, and this obviously unearths some challenging issues which they must confront. But they’re able to do this exploration together, and deepen their newfound bond even more.
There’s a chance that some viewers might not have as strong of a personal connection to the film as I did. While I’m not adopted there are many adoptions in my family and I think on an elemental level I just so profoundly appreciated the many people involved in the journey of these two young women and how profoundly loved they both seem to have been. Their giggly personalities might grate on some as they wrestle with ways to express themselves and utter the word “weird” some 100 plus times in the film’s short runtime. But I was charmed by them both, fascinated by their unique story, and impressed with the documentary technique implemented to tell it in an authentic way.
I shed a lot of tears during Twinsters, most all of them happy ones. There’s a goodness that pumps through the veins of this movie offering a profoundly human experience, albeit an extraordinary one. The sisters have only known one another for a little over a year now, and they’ll have to work to find a way to live near one another due to their differing nationalities. But the bond they share is profound and captured excitingly with this feel good documentary.
And I’m Out.
