PRODIGAL SONS
Kimberly Reed, neé Paul McKerrow, started out making a film about her adopted brother Marc. Believing they couldn’t conceive, their parents had adopted Marc and then 11 months later Paul was born. Marc had to be held back in pre-school so the two grew up as brothers in the same grade, a set up for the ultimate sibling rivalry. While Paul was the king of high school, star quarterback, valedictorian, tall, blond and handsome, Marc struggled, ultimately not even graduating. A head injury, and then later a fantastical discovery change his life, but not the rivalry.
It’s a truly fascinating story: what happens when the homecoming king comes home as a queen. In Kimberly’s case we see that, from the community’s perspective, the acceptance is fairly smooth at the 20th high school reunion. But the dramatic tension of the piece really centers on the struggle to rebuild, or build a relationship. It raises the question of whether siblings who were both so close in age and household experiences yet so far in talents and circumstances, can every truly accept each other. As family members we are told we must, but in reality the gulf can’t always be bridged.
In this case Marc is stuck in the past when it comes to Kimberly who he still sees and experiences as Paul in a strange way. Kim, as many transsexuals do, has really tried, and almost completely succeeded, in burying the past, her male identity erased and she wants to keep it that way. In one scene when Marc is passing around pictures of the three brothers, Paul, Marc and Todd (who happens to be gay), Kimberly tries to explain to Marc why she doesn’t want him to. Until this point, we haven’t been encouraged to side with Marc, given his erratic, sometimes adolescent behavior as well as violent outbursts. But the dynamic shifts at this moment and we see the wisdom of his position: we can keep moving forward but we cannot really escape our pasts, somehow they must be incorporated.
As filmmaking goes, it’s rough and mostly hand-held but unlike a big budget film like Hancock that misuses this technique, this is genuinely personal. There are plenty of moments when you can’t believe you’re watching what you’re watching, mostly around Marc’s continuing emotional troubles.
I kept remarking to my husband that Kimberly Reed (as Paul) looked almost exactly like one of our Randolph High School dreamboat jocks, Paul McGill. It would have never occurred to me at the time that someone like that might not feel comfortable in their own skin. Kimberly Reed admits that there was and still is an ease in her life that will never be a part of her brother Marc’s, she is still a sort of golden girl, but one with a raft of complications.
Look for Prodigal Sons in theaters now.
Directed by Kimberly Reed; produced by John Keitel and Kimberly Reed; Director of Photography, John Keitel; edited by Shannon Kennedy and Kimberly Reed.
With: Kimberly Reed; Marc McKerrow; Carol McKerrrow; Todd McKerrow; Oja Kodar; Claire Jones; Debbie McKerrow; and Jan Haima.
