Prodigal Sons

Most of my review on this one is a spoiler alert. The first part won't be a spoiler. I will inform you of that when the spoiler begins.

This documentary is about a girl named Kimberly Reed and her family. She takes a trip back to her home town for a high school reunion. However when she went to school in rural Montana she was the former quarterback and captain of the HS football team. Her name used, USED to be Paul Mckerrow. That is not a spoiler as that is what the film is partly about. She is a transgendered female with a girl friend. I suppose technically she is a lesbian, but not really. Hmmm.. I am sure there are debates on that one on the Internet else where. I don't really want to get into that side of the documentary. I think Kim is a very lovable person. She is definitely someone I would be honored to be friends with. I think she is a beautiful woman, and was a beautiful man. The other part of the documentary is about her brother Marc. He suffered a head injury when he was 21 in a car accident. Its a great film to watch. I give it 3-4 stars out of 5. I am undecided on the star system.

***Spoiler Alert starts here***

OH Yeah! These are the type of documentaries that make me LOVE them! I have a huge fascination with documentaries about people who have mental illness. I also love documentaries about people who are MHDD (Mentally handicapped developmentally delayed.) People either look at it as a good thing or as exploiting people who are unaware of their environment. I look at it as being a good thing because I think it helps people understand things better about other people that they may not be exposed to that often if ever. I know that Marc has had an accident in his life that may or may not have caused his mood swings and violent outbursts. Kim mentioned that he was very much moody prior to the accident. It makes me wonder why she did not dive deeper into her own background. First she is a transgender, the other brother is homosexual and then Marc is mentally unstable. It could all be coincidence, however in most families of three kids one comes out without as much baggage as the others. They all continuously repeated that they loved their father but I do have to question that. Not much was said about him other than him being a doctor and that they loved him. I love my parents too, that doesn't mean they were perfect people. The sooner a person can say their parents aren't perfect the sooner they can; love them for their mistakes as people, stop sugar coding their faults, stop having a juvenile perception of them as always being right. Its seems to be a problem from my view that they idolized him in some odd way. Suspicious.

Marc is adopted because his parents thought they couldn't have children. Then in an odd turn of events, they had Paul roughly a year later they had another child. Marc is obsessed with his past. While he was in high school with Paul (Kim now) he was very competitive. Marc was held back in preschool so the two of them went through school together. That would be difficult for anyone, but especially for a child that is adopted and his brother is "the Cats Meow!" During part of the movie, prior to the reunion an old friend of Marc's is talking to the camera and complaining about how Marc screwed him over on a car deal back in high school. I think that part shows that Marc was always an unreliable person and very self centered. I think the accident has become an excuse for him to behave badly, however I do believe he does suffer a mental illness that should be addressed. Obviously he needs some counseling and anger management. Kim seems to understand that at least in part. She seems to think that if Marc finds his biological parents then that will give him something to cling to instead of the past he had with her when she was a man. Marc does succeed in finding out who his biological family is... Lo and fricken behold his mother is Rebbecca Welles!!! Crazy! Daughter of the famous Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth. Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth had no idea Marc existed! I think the biggest bite in the ass for Marc has to the fact that Orson and his long time lover and partner Oja Kodar would have loved to have a son!!! Hows that for a kick in the balls!!!