Question

Describe similarities among the triplets from the film “Three Identical Strangers”, specifically how they were similar in their physical traits, personality traits and their upbringing/ environment.

Answer 1

The recently released documentary, Three Identical Strangers, tells a story that’s at times humorous, at times incredible, and at other times foreboding. The film, directed by Tim Wardle and released across the United States in the past few weeks, tells a story some might remember from headlines in the 1980s: Three college-aged identical triplets—Eddy Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran—each put up for adoption, learn they were separated at birth and are reunited.

It is almost too good to be true. At the time, it was the kind of good news everyone wants to hear. Seeing the three hardy boys together, whether in New York Post photos, on prime-time TV shows, or in person at the Manhattan restaurant they ended up opening, was deeply heart-warming. Everyone wants to belong to a tribe; one can only imagine how powerful it must feel to find two other people who are immediate family; who have ties to you from before you knew; who literally reflect your likeness on their faces; and, who can give you a bear-hug as warm as your own, which you can all but imagine if you’ve ever seen photos of Eddy, David, and Bob together.

It’s a story of the power of nature and nurture. But it’s a story that quickly turns dark when one looks past the lighthearted headlines and comedic banter of TV show hosts, who note how the trio happens to like the same brand of cigarettes.

David was placed in an upper-class family with a doctor as his adoptive father; he experienced a rather reserved home life where his father was often unavailable. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Bob was placed in a working-class home with a grocery-store owner as a father who had a very warm and jovial disposition and later became affectionately called the Yiddish nickname “Bubula” by all three boys. Meanwhile, Eddy was placed in a middle-class family with a dad he often clashed with. A person close to the triplets said in the film, Eddy’s relationship with his dad “couldn’t have been good...otherwise, we would have seen him, or Eddy would have talked about him.”

As the brothers grew up, got married, and pursued their business endeavors, some coped better than others with the inevitable stressors in life that come up. After one of the brothers left their joint restaurant business, Eddy’s behavior became erratic and unpredictable, and he displayed manic-depressive symptoms. After receiving brief psychiatric care, he returned home. One morning, when he didn’t show up at work, a family member went to check the house and discovered that Eddy had shot himself. He was 33 years old.

After the tragedy, the surviving brothers couldn’t help but see differences in how they were raised and how it may have affected their life choices. The elderly father of Eddy even said, still in grief, “I often wondered if I didn’t teach him something…how to live life or something…that bothers me.”

Three Identical Strangers offers an empathic view of multiple perspectives throughout the film, but the most salient are those that caution viewers away from intentionally and unnecessarily dividing biological family members. The story clearly conveys how it never serves anyone well to unnecessarily mess with nature.