The Imposter

There seems to be a common theme in documentaries at the moment of children that have come to no good. We've had children murdered, we now get one who just goes missing.
In 1994, thirteen year-old Nicholas Barclay disappeared from his home in Texas. Three years later he turned up in Spain. Or I should say a man turned up claiming to be Nicholas. How this amazing story played out is the subject of this fascinating documentary. It is probably hard to believe that a 23 year-old man was able to pass himself off as a 16 year-old boy but to me director Bart Layton makes it totally convincing. I'm going to reveal some spoilers here. The believability factor is in the way the family was willing to accept this man as their long lost son. When you realize why you can understand it better. You get the impression that the family had something to hide and letting this man into their lives would help keep the secret. But the fact that they thought they would get away with it is still mind boggling. Bart does a very good job of presenting interviews with all the major participants and towards the end you can see the Barclay family lying as they explain why they accepted this man as their son. The recreations that Bart does are also well done too.
I can understand how some people could find this story to be too weird to be true. But for me I found it fascinating and really well told.