It’s probably safe to say that Jono McLeod’s documentary My Old School isn’t quite like anything we’ve seen before, both in subject and format. This inventive and charmingly told tale about a renowned Scottish hoax is probably not familiar to most Americans, all the better for us to watch it unfold and deliver its surprises. Using current interviews, old footage and news reports, and many animated sequences, McLeod puts together a fascinating portrait of Brandon Lee (not the late actor), his former classmate at the posh Bearsden Academy in Glasgow. Though Lee agreed to be interviewed, he declined to appear on camera, resulting in one of the film’s most interesting elements: venerable Scots actor Alan Cumming “stars” as Lee, expertly lip-synching his story. (All of the other film’s characters appear as themselves, as animated versions of themselves, or both.)

The tale begins in 1993, when Lee enters fifth form at Bearsden Academy, located in one of Glasgow’s fancier neighborhoods. Tall and somewhat odd-looking, he stands out from his 16-year-old classmates in several ways, including his deep voice , unplaceable accent, and formal clothes.

His fellow classmates soon find out that Lee had previously lived in Canada with his late opera-singer mother, toured with her extensively, and had been privately tutored, which explained his accent and advanced age. His ”mask-like” appearance was due to plastic surgery after a tragic car accident that left his face disfigured. He now lived in a not-so–posh section of Bearsden with his grandmother.

We learn all of these details through cheerful interviews with several of Lee’s (and McLeod’s) former classmates (now in their 30s) and teachers, who recall their first impressions and subsequent relationships with Lee. Their memories are illustrated by colorful 1990s-style animated scenes that are stylistically reminiscent of that decade’s sitcom Daria.

Eventually, this strange newcomer—a wiz in biology and an expert in 70s and ’80s punk and new wave music—becomes less a figure of ridicule, achieving popularity with his relative sophistication and driving skills (apparently one can get a driver’s license earlier in Canada). He also befriends and changes the lives of two bullied kids, both of whom as adults reminisce about him affectionately. Lee is eventually cast in a school production of South Pacific, blowing everyone away with his singing and stage presence. All the while, there are tantalizing clues to his mysterious past, but his real story is so far out that no one picks up on it.

Things start to unravel, however, after a vacation with a couple of classmates, and we finally learn his real, incredible story. We also (finally) get to see his actual face in old footage and photos, a highlight that McLeod almost teasingly builds up to.

My Old School is a mostly light-hearted, entertaining film, its tone set by the amusing interview snippets with Lee’s former classmates and the use of droll animation. It’s true that no crime was actually committed nor was any real harm done by Lee’s hoax, though certain aspects of his behavior were certainly unseemly (and he himself clearly has some psychological issues). In someone else’s hands, this story could have been shown in a harsher light. As it is, My Old School should not cause viewers to lose any sleep about the ever-surprisingly weirdness of human beings. And that is not a bad thing.

My Old School opens theatrically on Friday, July 22, at Film Form in NYC.

—Marina Zogbi