The Other Fellow
Most people reading this will never know what it’s like to have a famous name unless you become famous. That may sound cynical, but it’s also accurate. Yes, we may have part of a name that makes people go, “You mean like so-and-so?” Heck, I know this well, because when I tell people how my name is pronounced, some will go, “You mean like the bird in ‘The Little Mermaid?'” Yes, indeed, just born with it 12 years prior to the Disney Renaissance beginning. But what is it like to have the same name as one of the most iconic characters in the English language? That is the blessing, or curse, of the people at the heart of Matthew Bauer’s documentary.
Instinctively, we all know that there are people named James Bond in the world- James is one of the most ubiquitous first names in the world, and plenty of people have the last name Bond. One of the things I appreciate so much about “The Other Fellow” is that it comes at its premise from the perspectives of the people who share name James Bond. Some of their stories are comedic, like anecdotes about times they’ve heard bad jokes thousands of times; some are serious, like when they’ve been linked to a death; some are profound, like when one man in Norway adopted the name after his father walked out on he and his mother. Our name does not define who we are, but it does shape our identity. For many, the name James Bond defines a certain type of masculinity. For the people in “The Other Fellow,” it can either be a familial name passed down through the generations; a life filled with terrible puns; or a new life.
Bauer explores what it’s like to have the name James Bond by showing how Ian Fleming took it from the name of an author of books on birds he had with him when he was writing his first 007 novel. That we have footage of the wife of the original James Bond that inspired it all telling us about what it was like is a great look at how Fleming’s choice transformed life for people, but also how people can come to accept it as a part of who they are in a meeting between Fleming and Bond. Like the Bond series in general, “The Other Fellow” centers on men, but there is one woman in the film who is a main figure in how the name changed her life, or rather, her son’s life. Their story is the most harrowing in the film, and it makes for a difficult watch to see someone go through Hell only to see that a way out involves changing their name to one of the most well-known in the world. Similarly difficult is how a Black man with the name is accused of murder, what that does to him on social media, and how the media can be painfully glib about such a thing. “The Other Fellow” is filled with entertaining moments, but when it leans into the real-world impacts of a certain identity, it takes what could have been a silly premise, and makes it something we’re engaged with on a deeper level.
