MovieChat Forums > The Imposter (2012) Discussion > ANYONE NOTICE??

ANYONE NOTICE??

posted 12 years ago by lovindmusic
6 replies | jump to latest

That throughout the movie Frederic frequently says things like " they wanted to believe i was him" and words to that effect... yet he accuses them of killing them. We all know he's a liar and this just seems to prove to me that he was lying about the killing of Nicholas. I mean, why would he think that they were so heartbroken over the disappearence of Nicholas that they took in a stranger and then supposedly in the same interview accuse them of killing him? Sounds like a liar forgetting his words to me..

Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease

[–] ChocolateButt 11 years ago

Maybe they wanted everybody else to believe it was him. Maybe he was just a convenient bit of evidence that they were not involved in the death of the real Nicholas.

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[–] sirmildredpierce 11 years ago

There is a fairly obvious subtext going on that the movie really only hints at in some ways. Each person really had different interests in accepting Frederic as Nicholas. And we also only get their impressions through a single interview after the fact. The movie is also edited in such a way to give a certain narrative.

It wasn't only Frederic that suspected the family, specifically Nicholas's older brother, as being complicit in the murder. It is hardly difficult to believe that Frederic, who is by any account a very brilliant conman, would easily be able to put 2 and 2 together and figure out what happened and what was going on.

Essentially this is a tale of an experienced con man sort-of bumbling in to a con and discovers he is only part of another con being perpetrated by some very *inexperienced* con women. The mother seems to be more knowledgeable about what actually happened to Nicholas. The sister seems far less knowledgeable about what happened to him (which isn't so hard to believe since Nicholas was living with his mother when he disappeared, the movie never really goes out of its way to inform the viewer that the sister and the mother lived apart. And on top of that Frederic lived with the *sister*, not the *mother* when he conned his way in to their lives.)

Frederic did eventually move in with the mother but their relationship was always strained and he never believed that *she* believed he was her son. She seemed to be going along with the story for the convenience of it.

The skepticism you give towards Frederic is warranted, I do believe, he is a con-man and a liar. But that skepticism needs to be extended towards everyone in the family you see interviewed in the film. They are all conmen and liars.

But when the chips finally fall I think Frederic's version of the events are better supported by the facts, he really didn't have anything to lose by telling the truth. Yes he was a conman and a liar, but that doesn't mean everything he says is a con or a lie.

[–] daddie0 11 years ago

But when the chips finally fall I think Frederic's version of the events are better supported by the facts, he really didn't have anything to lose by telling the truth.

I would say that he's a very astute--and gifted--reader of human circumstance. For instance, he comes clean just as the FBI is closing in (I know the film is creating drama/narrative, but he did decide to come clean). He smiles and "thumbs up" to the cameras once he's caught, and--at the very end--he says he is "only concerned about myself...that's all no one else." And I think that might be the only true statement he made the entire film.

It seems to me that he's only dredging up guilt in the family over history/disappearance/whatever, and we are interpreting it as guilt of murder.

As to having nothing to gain, I'm sure he was conning prosecutors, guards, and others along the way, and he may have believed it would help his case to help them "catch a killer."

In other words, if at the very end he looked at the camera and said, "I made up the whole 'Mother confessed to me' bit." I would not be surprised at all.

[–] ladylaughinglizard 10 years ago

I was under the impression that the sister lived with them when Nicholas went
missing because in the home movie at the very beginning Nicholas has the camera filming around his house and says "this is my sister's room, she has a TV in it, isn't she so lucky?"

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Noirdame79 (107) 3 years ago

No, the sister (Carey) was living with her then-husband and their two kids in a trailer at the time Nicholas went missing. That's where Frederic Bourdin initially went to stay when he first came to Texas and was pretending to be Nicholas. The home video footage may have been shot at her home.