Prodigal Sons (2008) User Reviews

Genuine!!!

[hughman55 · 10/10 · 16 March 2010]

I was completely unprepared for the depth and scope of this story of a family in deep crisis. Two brothers have gone through dramatic changes over the last twenty years and are about to crash head on into one another. What I think is at the heart of this story is a rather common family dynamic: Sometimes, as children and for reasons unknown, we fixate on our siblings, or worse, on a particular sibling. We spend our entire lives measuring everything about ourselves against the object of our sibling rivalry, always coming up short. Regardless of the fact that after we leave home we will compete with an entire world full of strangers - for jobs, marriages, friends, homes, schools, grades, a line at the grocery store, you name it - every step of the way all we think about is how what we're doing, and who we are, will compare with that sibling. Thus is the story of Kimberly Reed and her brother Marc.

This story begins with Kimberly Reed returning to her hometown of Helena, Montana for a high school reunion. Twenty years earlier she was Paul McKerrow, the handsome popular quarter back. Kimberly Reed, now a striking, engaging, and confident woman, is accompanied by a film crew. She thinks she is going to make a documentary about all the shocked faces she will have to confront at the reunion. Quite suddenly, however, the documentary takes on a bizarre detour. Enter her adopted, older (by eleven months), brother Marc. He was troubled as a child and became even more so as he grew into his teens. He is now, and always has been, fixated on his younger "golden boy" brother Paul - now Kimberly.

The story that started as Kimberly's (Paul's) high school reunion swerves into the unpredictable madness and volatility that is Marc. Marc sustained a traumatic head injury right after high school. A large portion of his frontal lobe needed to be removed in order to reduce seizures brought about from scarring from the injury. This has left him a bit slow, and a bit dangerous. His childhood grievances have now taken on frightening proportions. The family scenes that unfold before the camera are unexpected, shocking, and raw, and will jolt you from your seat. What began as a flouncy little film that might have been programed next to "Project Runway" on Bravo, turns into a searing and heartbreaking family drama. Not the kind of "family drama" we are use to seeing now that comes off of a conveyor belt of contrivance though. This is real.

Kimberly Reed is to be commended for being nimble enough in her film making to pivot to the larger story as it unexpectedly unfolded. Her story of transgenderism, (please forgive me if I'm using the wrong conjugation) becomes secondary to the story of her family's struggles to cope with a poorly adjusted brain damaged son/brother. Marc's sister, brother, and Mother, struggle to help him. But, understandably, their love is guarded with a healthy amount of self protection.

The story that unfolds during Kimberly's high school reunion documentary is one of a family pushed to the breaking point as they deal with a loved one who has become, to put it lightly, unmanageable. Marc has become dangerous and unpredictable and everyone is walking on eggshells around him. Only when an outsider intervenes, who's perceptions are not distorted by familial love, or guilt, or whatever it is that renders a relative's judgment dulled to the harsh truth about their loved one, and calls 911, does the story begin down a path that is irreversible and painfully necessary.

Spoiler here: adopted Marc turns out to be the biological grandson of genius Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. This detours the movie to Croatia, where Marc meets his "Stepgrandmother". Other revelations flow from this reunion and none of them, as sensational as they might be (you couldn't write this stuff and be believed) comes close to being the climax of this story.

The data points of this story are mind boggling; transgendered daughter (also a lesbian), brain damaged son seething with sibling rivalry, gay son, high school reunion, etc... None of this would amount to a good documentary unless it was in capable hands. This film is. It never hits one false note. It is compelling, poignant, and at times disturbing. But it is above all, and at all times, genuine. And it is presented with unflinching personal honesty.

Reed uses the vast landscapes of Montana to establish a tone of beauty and tranquility to stand in contrast to the internal turmoil she grew up with, and the external turmoil about to unfold. The landscapes are so magnificent you want to get up in the middle of the movie and relocate there. And Reed handles the shocking events of this story with deftness and compassion. I can't express enough admiration for the work she has done here. For the record, though I don't think it matters, I am a male and very happy in my male body. I went to see this movie to perhaps understand something foreign to myself. I got some of that. Mostly I was just blown away by the film, and left the theater thinking that Kimberly Reed is a talented film maker and a truly decent person. If you are looking for a film about transgenderism, this may not be for you. On the other hand, if you are looking for a powerful documentary that will move you, see Prodigal Sons. It is brilliant. One can only hope that this is the first of many good films by Kimberly Reed. I HIGHLY recommend this touching, alarming, and like all real family dramas, unresolved, story about the McKerrow family. 10 out of 10!!!

An excellent film whose message will forever stay imprinted on my mind

[harryandtonto · 10/10 · 23 March 2010]

The trailer for this film intrigued me a great deal. When I got the opportunity to see it my expectations were rather high because I'd found the trailer so interesting. Then the film started, and I felt a little deflated thinking this isn't what I was expecting. And then something happened to me as I was watching it . . . I began to have a very visceral reaction to it. I am one of those people who does feel that many documentaries take advantage and capitalize on the exploitation of their subjects. But the people who fill out the frames of "Prodigal Sons" are human beings trying to tell the truth. The film never feels exploitative, quite simply it feels honest. It is a brave film that the courageous director, Kimberly Reed, has made and it deserves to be seen by a vast audience. I find it odd that some would narrowly consider this film "another one of those gay docs about members of the trans-gendered community". Although one of the subjects may be trans-gendered, it is not a film about the trans-gendered lifestyle. It is a film about the ghosts that haunt us and the ways we try to justify ourselves and our identities to a world of people when really the only thing that matters is the peace we make with ourselves in our own lives and with the people we love and who are brave enough to love us in return. Do NOT miss this film . . . I've only seen it once, and even though I want to see it many times again, I feel it's message imprinted on mind and I will never forget it.

Gripping and surprising at every turn.

[r0der1ck · 10/10 · 16 August 2009]

This is a magnificent documentary, the sort of film that reminds one why documentaries are made. The maker clearly thinks that she knows the general shape of the film at the beginning - returning to her hometown after transitioning to being a woman, about to see her old high school friends for the first time with her new body and true identity - but instead finds that it's much more about her brother and his ongoing identity crises - who is he, who is he becoming - than about her own questions of place and home. Kim seems to answer for herself the age-old question of whether one can or cannot go home again but finds that the question is being raised over and over again for the people around her who face their own issues of loved ones lost and gained.

This film avoids any sense of predictability or forced sentiment, continually surprising the viewer and rewarding attention to detail, both by the audience and the makers. Absolutely magnificent. It will surprise from beginning to end.

Prodigal Sons

[kindigth · 23 October 2010]

Kimberly Reed was understandably nervous about coming home to her small Montana town. She had grown up as Paul McKerrow: high school quarterback, popular scholar, handsome and well-respected male. She then left this life behind to realize her identity as female, and was now returning for a class reunion--the first time her childhood friends would know her as a woman. Armed with a camera, supported by her girlfriend, and braced for an onslaught of transphobia, Reed plunged in.

And then nothing really happened. A few explanations were in order for a few bemused guests, but the vast majority of Reed's small town Montana classmates were perfectly cordial and accepting. Thus begins Reed's 2008 documentary Prodigal Sons.

Although Reed's homecoming is disappointingly lacking in narrative interest, Reed finds plenty of documentable conflict in her estranged brother Marc, who lost part of his brain in a car crash and is now mentally unstable. Reed films herself asking Marc for fashion advice and alternately encouraging/discouraging Marc's childhood reminiscence; Marc is seen trying to be accommodating in spite of his obvious discomfort. Until his mood swings hit and he becomes a total jackass--though even then, he's more concerned with Kim's high school adoration than her status as a woman.

So goes the film: Kimberly either expects or invites opposition to her gender and receives none; Marc deals with a crippling mental disorder, alienates everybody, and plunges into paranoia and despair. While both stories are compelling in their own right, they do not compliment each other. Reed's primary misstep is to give her own story as much weight as Marc's: I have no doubt that Reed has overcome a great deal of hardship in her transition, but her struggle is told rather than shown. What is shown is a sad, jealous man losing his mind--the plight of stable, well-adjusted, transsexual Reed seems terribly bourgeois in comparison.

Ultimately, this particular work of transgender cinema would be quite a bit more effective if it were a little bit less concerned with its status as such. Reed obviously hoped for a reconciliatory homecoming story--see title--but what she got was the sad deterioration of her still-jealous-about-high-school brother. If she'd had the discipline to tell his story rather than hers, she'd have a better film for it. -TK 10/23/10

What a life.

[lisabeths · 9/10 · 7 March 2011]

I agree with every reviewer. They are all correct as they are each coming from a different direction.

I found this movie mesmerizing. I think of it as a slice of life rather than a constructed documentary. The intended focus, the reunion, would have been rather disappointing. Nothing happened evidently to compare with what happened later. In fact, I could believe that there would be no film at all based on the footage we saw.

So what we end up with is a view into the potential life of anyone, anywhere, transgendered or not, adopted or not, gay or not, mentally ill or not. This could have happened to you or to me but I bet we wouldn't have had a camera in our hands.

Family is a roller coaster ride for most but we generally don't get this kind of view into someone else's. Thanks for sharing.

Very misleading marketing

[nauset-839-468110 · 1/10 · 8 September 2010]

This film was marketed as a story about a trans gendered person.

It is actuality a story of a family struggling to cope with a head injured member who is unpredictable and violent. His sister just happens to be a trans gendered film maker.

I was very disappointed. To hear Marks repetitive ramblings was annoying. To see a family acknowledge his injury yet continue to try and treat him as normal or expect him to react as normal was aggravating.

Obviously, this family cared about this man. But what this film illustrated best was the dysfunctional dynamics which occur in families struggling to deal with an unpredictable head injured person.

This is very good as an educational tool for families on how not to deal with a head injured person.

The trans gender issues were secondary, if even relevant to this film.

I truly believe the filmmaker was looking for an angle for marketing it and appealing to the trans gender issue was probably the most viable for her.

The focus was on the wrong person, with tragic, avoidable consequences.

[jm10701 · 12 October 2010]

For the first time, I am editing a review after further reflection and taking away its stars. I can no longer say I even like this movie. It is mean-spirited in an underhanded way that Kim Reed is probably not even aware of.

We are so used to seeing the LGBT character in a movie as the victim that we are blindsided when that character is in reality the victimizer. Reed used this movie to attack and expose her adopted brother Marc's truly horrific mental problems, which did nothing good for him but a lot bad.

The moral problem is that Kim is the strong one in that relationship, the gorgeous, charismatic one who all her life had extraordinary advantages and adoration from everybody in her world. Her triumphant return to her home town as a woman and her total acceptance by everybody but Marc makes it obvious that she still operates from a position of extraordinary power in that world.

Kim is NOT the disadvantaged, abused one in this movie: Marc is. The fact that his disadvantages were not in any way the fault of Kim or anybody else in the extraordinarily compassionate McKerrow family, rather the fault of the genes he got from his birth parents, does not excuse anything. She was not abused by Marc as they grew up together, so she had no excuse for exposing his troubles to the world. It was cruel and grossly self-serving: nobody ended the movie better off than when it started except for Kim herself.

Hers is a fascinating story, but instead of sharing HERSELF with the audience, she turned the camera onto her poor, tortured brother whose only offense EVER was to be jealous of her vastly superior advantages. By doing so she inflamed his problems beyond endurance. If she had just left him alone and told her own story instead of his, we all would be very much better off - especially Marc, but even Kim herself, because it would have forced her to descend from her tower of invulnerability and expose herself instead of her poor, tortured, fundamentally innocent brother.