In the film, Marie, like many other women, seems to have subsumed much of her identity into her roles as a wife and mother, whether or not the relationship she’s fighting for is actually good for anyone involved in it.
“For myself and for Marie, I think that she really is who she is, and who she believes herself to be, is completely wrapped up in her husband and her kid,” Rothe says. “So the moment that either of those things go away, she’s completely lost her sense of self, and I think that that’s something that’s so incredibly relatable. Even though the things that she does and the ways that she goes about getting what she wants sometimes are maybe not the most sane, or [what] we all think that we would do, it comes from such a deep place of need and and desperation.”
According to Phillips, it’s much the same for Marie’s husband Paul, who’s struggling to determine the sort of man (and husband and father) he’s supposed to be.
“When your identity gets challenged – an entity you might not even know that you’ve held for so long — it can get really ugly,” Phillips says. “Sometimes I’m surprised at what I realize I identify as, like filmmaker, brother, son, and when that gets threatened, or I feel like I’m not living up to the identity in my head, I can feel these dark emotions come up.”
In Imposters, Paul is attempting to live up to an ideal he was already struggling to meet before his child went missing.
“I think there’s a whole sort of martyr complex to that character,” he says. “It’s something I’ve seen in a lot of men, both of a certain generation and at my same age range — there’s this proclivity to suffer. You’re not really sure what they’re suffering for, but the act of suffering somehow makes them noble. But what if it’s not what’s good for you or for other people? It’s fascinating.”
