You can’t make up this stuff! That’s why documentaries were invented – because if you saw a narrative movie with a similar plot line, you’d say, “This is ridiculous – too far fetched to be believed. Stop it, already.” Prodigal Sons, though starting out as a documentary about a son who decides to return to hometown Montana for the 20 year high school reunion, has so many extreme and unexpected twists and turns to it – from the introduction of high school football hero, Paul McKerrow, the prodigal “son” returning home as a women, filmmaker Kimberly Reed, and all the background that goes along with having made that decision, to adoptive older brother Marc who not only has childhood jealousy issues and a history of mental problems due to a severe accident that necessitated the removal of a chunk of his brain, to the discovery of Marc’s world famous birth parents, to youngest son, Todd, being a gay architect who pretty much opted out of the family dynamics, to all the subtleties and nuances of all three siblings and their mother interacting – you just wouldn’t buy it as a movie. It really had to be true to be believed. And it is artfully documented by filmmaker Kim Reed and cinematographer John Keitel over the course of several years.
     And what I found most fascinating was that this was an ideal family situation to start. Mom was a school teacher, dad was a doctor -- affluent, comfortable, loving, supportive and intelligent people in a community that boasted the Montana “Big Sky” and a population that is, if not sophisticated, open and accepting. Golden boy Paul, football co-captain who was vied for as date to the school proms, felt uncomfortable in his body, though attracted to the opposite sex. Yet, there was no mother who dressed him in girl’s clothing, nor an absentee or overly strict dad, nor any other obvious environmental factor which might cause stress, discomfort or a sense of ambiguity. Whatever social reasons one might attribute to digression from the “norm” of gender identity, none where there. Nor did these parents exert pressure on their adoptive son, Marc, to meet the standards set by them or their birth sons. Though Marc felt humiliated by the successes of the others in his family, they felt only love and acceptance for him. There are no roots of evil, no school kids chasing any of the sons home, throwing rocks or taunting; no bully; no conflict. Only genetics and accidents of birth, and one grisly car accident, can be responsible for the tensions, unfulfilled hopes and dysfunction in this household.
     One might ask, “When do you decide to stop shooting a family documentary that takes place in real time (meaning you have no idea what the end is while you’re shooting)?” This film may show – when the viewers’ consciousness won’t accept any more. Maybe in a few years, we’ll get a follow-up film to bring us up to speed on the convoluted and ever dramatic and interesting lives of the McKerrow family. But by the time this film ends, one’s head is reeling.
     This is a documentary about a better than typical American family growing up and living in a better than typical American town dealing with the problems they had no part in creating – good people, great kids, spectacular environment, yet social and psychological upheavals. We get insightful perspectives on all the issues a transgender person confronts, as well as those of the adoptive child – with the very special circumstances of mental disorders and an outrageously famous birth family. And let’s not forget how the rest of the family copes with this soup.