The set-up for this documentary is fantastic: A black girl is adopted by a single Jewish lesbian who meets another single lesbian who has an adopted black son and the two settle in to a married life together in Brooklyn. They ultimately adopt a Korean son and live as a multi-ethnic upper-middle-class family with three self-identified Jewish children. At some point in her high school years, the girl, a nationally rated star track runner, discovers tidbits about her personal history and biological family who gave her up and begins to rebel against the loving mothers who raised her. Wow!
Sadly, the film does not live up to it's potential wonderfulness. Part of my problems are with the true history of the girl, Avery, and the fact that there is not a magical end to her personal story (the filmmakers had no control over this, of course), but part of my problem is that the film goes off track story-wise and veers in a direction it should not.
Avery is a gregarious, compelling young woman who speaks frankly about her feelings and thoughts on her story. We see her struggling with the desire to learn about her birth mother and her birth family, while remaining respectful to her adoptive mothers. Her mothers decided to put her into public high school after she spent her elementary years in a private Jewish day school. In public school, she looks like just another black girl - despite the fact that she is Jewish and has a more uncommon nuclear family story. As she develops a group of mostly black friends and an understanding of a shadow life she could have lived in Texas with her birth family, she struggles with her identity, which suddenly doesn't feel natural to her.
As this is happening, director Nicole Opper unwisely focuses on Avery's mothers who fight to understand their daughter's mindset. In the end, we only see Avery explaining her feelings in retrospect rather than as she is experiencing them (for all I know she wouldn't talk to the filmmaker as she was dealing with the situation - in any event, it feels strange). This movie is really Avery's story - so a whole act barely dealing with her (just dealing with her absence) doesn't really work well.
In my view, part of biographical documentary making is dumb luck - one needs the subject to have a good, compelling story and one cannot do anything if the story falls apart in the middle. That Avery makes tragic decisions cannot be changed by the filmmaker, but Opper or editor Cheree Dillon should have steered the story in a better direction. The focus on the mothers and the family is totally the filmmakers' fault - not that of Avery or any ethereal force.
Avery's mothers come off as aloof and somewhat unkind to the girl's delicate situation. This is also sort of unfair, I think, as I'm sure they are doing what they are doing because they're hurt, threatened and love their daughter deeply. Still, they come off as very white and superficial. Avery also comes off as foolish and rash. Again, I think a good amount of these feelings come from the true chronology itself, but I don't think it's all that fair to the people involved. Why do I want to watch a film where all the priciple people are unlikable?
All in all, I think this is a big wasted opportunity. This is a good example of a badly executed documentary. I this is also a good example of how a good editor can tell many stories with the good footage, some interesting and some off the mark. Unfortunately the story told here is not the best one, I think.
Stars: 1 of 4
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment