Tracing three disparate characters as they navigate their personal and professional lives, My American Uncle defies traditional narrative structure by introducing a fourth figure, a behavioral scientist whose theories on human nature act as commentaries on the actions of the protagonists. The result is a fusion of fiction and documentary techniques, complicated by the film’s complex structure, with its three separate storylines, shifts back and forth in time and extensive voiceover narrative. Nowhere is the film more complex, however, than in its relationship to its three protagonists, who at first appear to be presented as case studies, a relationship Resnais ingeniously subverts by contrasting their emotional pain and fear with the coldly analytical voiceover of their “motivations” as explained by the scientist.