STORIES WE TELL opens with an extended shot of Michael Polley (director Sarah's father) reading out a prepared script in a recording studio, with his daughter facing him. This sequence serves as a metaphor for the entire film, which concentrates in depth on the nature of story- telling. It is fundamentally an autobiographical detective story, as Sarah interviews various members of her extended family to discover something about her late mother's life. We learn that her mother used to be an actress and performer; a vivacious soul who married Michael (a British actor) after having experienced a disastrous first marriage. Her marriage to Michael works fine for the first few years, but then things start to go wrong, and her mother ends up having an affair with film producer Harry Gulkin (one of Polley's interviewees). Michael and the family are based in Toronto; Gulkin in Montreal. As Sarah investigates more about this love-affair, she discovers something shocking about her own life that changes her perspective for ever. As she conducts her interviews, Polley realizes that different interviewees have different versions of 'the truth,' shaped not only according to their perceptions, but also by what they want to reveal on camera. Only by comparing different interviews can Polley reach at least an approximation about what 'really' happened to her mother and Gulkin, and the effect of their love-affair on Michael. One reviewer of this film has already asked "what is it REALLY about?" The answer to this question becomes clear: there is no such thing as a 'real' or 'definitive' interpretation of the past. We can only listen to different accounts, and make up our own minds, while realizing that our interpretation is no more or less definitive than other interpretations. Polley's film is both uncompromising yet sympathetic to the interviewees; sometimes they are prompted into revealing truths about themselves (which perhaps they had not previously admitted), but Polley - who appears on screen as well as directing the entire film - makes no judgment on them. This absorbing piece is essential viewing for anyone interested in the relativity of history, whether personal or otherwise.