Imposter (2012)
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| Available at Amazon. |
Bourdin, who turned out to have a long record of impersonating various different children, real or imaginary, embellished his claim to be Nicholas by alleging that he had been kidnapped for purposes of sexual abuse by Mexican, European, and U.S. military personnel and transported from Texas to Spain. His impersonation fooled several officials in Spain and the U.S., and he was apparently accepted by many of Nicholas' family members, even though he was seven years older than Nicholas, spoke with a strange accent, and had brown eyes and dark hair rather than Nicholas' blue eyes and blond hair. The impersonation was eventually unearthed as a result of the suspicions of a private investigator, Charles (Charlie) Parker, and an FBI agent, Nancy Fisher. Bourdin subsequently made a full confession, and in the movie he elaborates on the various stages in his impersonation.
The film raises, but does not resolve, the question of how the family came so readily to accept the impersonation. Parker, Fisher and Bourdin himself suggest, but cannot provide conclusive evidence for, the possibility that some in the family may have known more than they revealed about (or even been directly implicated in) Nicholas' disappearance, in which case his purported "reappearance" could have proved convenient from their point of view.
Because many of the events depicted in the film were not filmed when they happened, the film re-creates some of them with actors.
