The streaming platform Netflix is trying to revive itself after a disastrous 2022. It suffered a heavy subscription loss leading to the cancellation of a lot of content. But, they are inundating their crime thrillers and documentary catalogs. This proved beneficial for the platform since it started streaming Evan Peters starrer ‘Dahmer: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’. It is a biographical drama about Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. The series became one of the most popular content on Netflix in 2022. Now, it has re-released another crime thriller docu-series ‘The Imposter’.
After that, the platform started a marathon of new crime thrillers—be it documentaries, series, or docuseries—they filled the catalog to the brim. Titles like ‘Vatican Girl’, ‘Killer Sally’, and the third part of the ‘Crime Scene’ series followed the path-breaking series. They brought some real-life stories and converted them into long content chronicling the stories of serial killers, and mysterious disappearances. Now, it has brought a ten-year-old title into the limelight called ‘The Imposter’.
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Who Is Frédéric Bourdin In ‘The Imposter’ On Netflix?
‘The Imposter’ on Netflix is about a professional con artist Frédéric Bourdin. The trickster impersonated Nicholas Patrick Barclay, a Texan young chap who went missing in 1994. The family thought that he was dead, but the authorities in Spain told them that they had found their son. When the family reached Europe, they saw a different person. Nicholas was a blue-eyed child, but the young man in front of them had brown eyes and an accent.
The French man was an excellent impersonator. He cooked a story about how he went missing. Bourdin as Barclay said that the US military exploited him and trafficked him to Spain fooling the authorities and family. The family also accepted him despite him looking older than Nicholas.
Frédéric Bourdin was born a Parisian in 1974 (He pretended to be a 17-year-old!). Bourdin did not have his father and his mother abandoned him. So, the grandparents nurtured the child. From a very young age, he started fictionalizing his life, telling his absent father was a British agent. When he was 12 years old, he was sent to a correction home.
But, in 1990, he went to Paris pretending to be a lost British teenager. He wanted to be in England to live the rest of his life. Since that incident, he has been conning authorities to get into orphanages tweaking his narrative every time. In his life, he has forged 40 identities across Europe. One of the people from the French authorities praised his linguistic benediction.
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Where Is He Now? What Happened To Nicholas Barclay?
Suspicions started surfacing about Bourdin’s identity. But, it took a long time for the authorities to catch the lie. Finally, an FBI agent by the name of Charles Parker discovered the real face behind the disguise.
Bourdin told the authorities that the accent came due to the torture at the hands of the authorities. They asked him to talk in French to reduce the infliction of pain. But, he finally admitted to his crime saying, “I’m Frédéric Bourdin and I’m wanted by Interpol”.
Bourdin accused Barclays of killing their son. He reasoned that this is why they accepted him as their missing son to conceal it. The major suspect in the crime was Nicholas’ brother, Jason Barclay. But, he passed away due to drug addiction in 1998.
Later, Frédéric was charged with perjury and sent to the penitentiary for six years in the US. They deported him to Paris after five years. In 2007, he got married to Isabelle Bourdin, and they have five children. Unfortunately, the authorities could never find Nicholas Barclay and deemed him to be a runway. ‘The Imposter’ was released in 2012 and the director Bart Layton won a BAFTA for his debut.
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