Starbuck: French Canadian Family Values

David Wozniak was only ever good at one job.  It was more of a calling than a form of employment.  When he really needed money twenty-some years ago, he made regular deposits at a sperm bank.  Now 142 of his 533 previously unknown offspring are suing to learn his identity in Ken Scott’s Starbuck (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Wozniak’s donor kids only know him by his confidential alias, Starbuck.  American audiences will presume he is a fan of Melville, Battlestar Galactica, or coffee, but evidently there was a famous stud bull by this name up north—evidently an obvious reference for most Canadians.  This probably says a lot about the national psyche.  Scott is already in production on his American remake, wisely re-titled Delivery Man.  That is Wozniak’s current job, which he does poorly.

Wozniak has also just impregnated Valérie, his copper ex-girlfriend, who is dead set against having a loser like him as the father of her child.  He is trying to make his case as a prospective dad, despite being $80,000 in debt to loan sharks, when he learns of the suit against.  His slightly disbarred attorney buddy assures him this is actually good news, providing grounds for a counter suit against the clinic.  Yet, against his better judgment, Wozniak starts checking out his grown kids, becoming a sort of a big brother-guardian angel.  Some comedy ensues and lessons will be learned.

Starbuck has a major case of niceness that accelerates into full scale sentimentality during the third act.  Frankly, it is perfect material for Hollywood.  Nonetheless, it is not so terrible to build a film around the manboy’s late embrace of responsibility.  Patrick Huard’s shaggy dogness nicely fits the role and wears easily on viewers.  In contrast, Vince Vaughn’s sarcastic persona seems at odds with the gentle spirit of the Canadian original, but perhaps Scott can rein him in for Delivery Man.

Huard is indeed a likable sad sack and Julie LeBreton brings some maturity as Valérie.  Unfortunately, Wozniak’s brood essentially amount to a parade of stock characters, aside from the institutionalized son (kind of a gutsy choice there).  Yet, Antoine Bertrand’s wince-inducing shtick as Wozniak’s dubious lawyer will consistently set viewers’ teeth on edge.

Starbuck addresses similar themes as the Indy Lens doc Donor Unknown, but despite his myriad shortcomings, Wozniak is a much more appealing pseudo-father figure than the real life hippy serial depositor profiled in Jerry Rothwell’s film.  Frankly, Scott clearly likes all his characters too much to over-burden them with uncomfortable reality.  Mildly pleasant to watch, but only amounting to empty cinematic calories, Starbuck opens today (3/22) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Hippy Daddy: Donor Unknown

JoEllen Marsh’s family does not yet have their own definition-expanding sitcom, but considering the attrition rate of the new fall season, there should be many open slots next year. In fact, she probably has enough half-siblings to make it a hit by themselves. Marsh was conceived through the use of “donated” sperm and Jeffrey Harrison, her hippy dad, was a busy donor. Harrison finally meets some of the children he begat but never fathered in Jerry Rothwell’s Donor Unknown (trailer here), which airs this Thursday on PBS’s Independent Lens.

One of Marsh’s Pennsylvanian mothers can trace her ancestry back to the early days of the republic. On her father’s side, she only had a number, “Donor 150” at the California Cryobank. That was Harrison, a former stripper turned hippy beach bum. “Donor” is not exactly the right term. At the height of his “giving,” Harrison was getting up to fifty dollars a toss, so to speak, as often as four times per week. Yet, he was somehow rather shocked to discover he had quite a brood out there in the world.

Harrison’s anonymity was scrupulously protected by the Cryobank, but Marsh was still able to connect with a half-sister through a donor-sibling on-line search site. Slowly, more Donor 150 half-siblings turned up, but when Marsh shared her story for a New York Times piece, the floodgates opened. Harrison also chanced across the paper, learning of Marsh for the first time. Congratulations dude, you’re a father.

There is no getting around Harrison’s problematic nature, though Rothwell tries his hardest. When we are first introduced to him, Harrison is presented as a free-spirited animal lover, a St. Francis of Venice Beach. Slowly, we get a sense that this man is compulsively irresponsible and perhaps a bit self-delusional. However, at about the halfway point, Harrison launches into an unsettling rant of conspiracy theory paranoia. (One wonders if Rothwell was protecting him, keeping the really ugly stuff on the cutting room floor).

Frankly, there is way too much of Harrison in Unknown. The real story seems to be Marsh, who appears to be an intelligent and personable young woman, no thanks to him (or perhaps because of his absence). The way she forges real and meaningful ties of family and friendship with her donor-siblings is very cool, perhaps even inspirational. Whereas the long anticipated meeting with Harrison is mostly just anti-climatic.

With the very possibility relatively new, the evolution of donor-sibling relationships is fascinating to watch, accounting for the most rewarding sequences in Unknown. Not coincidentally, these are far stronger than the Donor 150 children’s budding “friendships” with their biological father. Indeed, in any film, hippies just are not that interesting. Recommended (but with some light fast-forwarding during Harrison’s scenes), Unknown hits airwaves this Thursday (10/20) as part of the current season of Independent Lens.