Unknown White Male - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Unknown White Male' proves amnesia can be boring

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The documentary "Unknown White Male" wants us to ponder notions of personality and being. Are we made up of our memories and experiences or (as the film has it) by some soul-like "pure us."

I mostly pondered if "Unknown White Male" was pure BS.

Wellspring

'Unknown White Male'

C-

The verdict: If it's true, it's a bore; if not, cheater! Cheater! Shame on you!

Director: Rupert Murray
Cast: Doug Bruce
Run time: 80 minutes
Release date: Feb. 17, 2006
Rating: PG-13 for drug references and brief strong language.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

The film claims to tell the strange-but-true tale of Doug Bruce who, on the morning of July 3, 2003, found himself on the F train to Coney Island, unable to remember who he was or why he was there.

So he went to a police station where he was handed over to a hospital. There, the chance discovery of a stray telephone number in his pocket began to unravel the mystery and establish his identity — that of a 30-something British stockbroker living in New York who'd already done so well for himself, he'd left Wall Street for an attempted career as a photographer.

Sort of a modern-day Kaspar Hauser, with better clothes, better vocabulary and better income — enough that he owns a spacious East Village loft.

A mere six days after this life-changing trauma, a surprisingly resilient Bruce has already recruited his old friend/filmmaker Rupert Murray, and they're up and running on a documentary about his recovering — or would that be re-discovering — his life.

If a man's life can be judged by the number of his girlfriends, Bruce's was apparently quite rich. There are quite a few of them, all gorgeous (even their mothers are gorgeous). At some point — after seeing several girlfriends certainly — he gets around to flying to Spain to reunite with his family. And then to London to hang out with some old pals who are now brand new to him. (When they watch home videos together, it's hinted he's much nicer now than he was.)

Yet we never see a session with a doctor who might be able to shed some light on Bruce's extraordinarily rare case of retrograde amnesia, as his illness is finally diagnosed.

If that's what it really is ...

My problem is, the bronzed, model-handsome Bruce gives a few too many interviews with his shirt off. Once, we even get a lingering, eroticized shot of him in his bathing suit. And there are too many too-pretty people on camera. It's as if they agreed to participate in this little goof so they'd have some film of themselves to show potential casting directors.

More questions occur. How did this lost soul know to go to a police station, but months later can't recognize Westminster Abbey? How come he's flummoxed by chocolate mousse and the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but remembers how to surf in Biarritz?

Beyond the issue of the movie's veracity — especially in these days of James Frey and JT LeRoy — lies a greater problem. Bruce himself never engages us emotionally. His sun-kissed life continues almost unruffled, whether he knows who he is or was or whatever. Intentionally or not, Murray maintains a certain distance from his subject. You don't really feel a connection to what his new life will be and how it will integrate — if ever — with his old life. In fact, you mostly don't care what happens to Bruce, beyond wondering if he'll take his shirt off again.

At one point, as it ticks off a list of Bruce's re-experiences in his new life, the movie radiantly reports, "Doug filmed the first time he saw snow!"

Too bad the whole movie feels sorta like a snow job.