Prodigal Sons (2008)

92% of critics liked it
(24 reviews)
76% of users liked it
(357 ratings)

Debut filmmaker Kimberly Reed addresses issues of identity, sexual orientation, childhood trauma, and family love as she returns to her small Montana hometown for her high school reunion, and attempts a long overdue reconciliation with her estranged adopted brother. As intense sibling rivalries come… More Debut filmmaker Kimberly Reed addresses issues of identity, sexual orientation, childhood trauma, and family love as she returns to her small Montana hometown for her high school reunion, and attempts a long overdue reconciliation with her estranged adopted brother. As intense sibling rivalries come into focus and startling revelations emerge (including a blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth), intimate family discussions lead the filmmaker on a journey from Montana to Croatia in order to understand her family's ongoing struggle to come to terms with the past, and accept the present. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 26 min.
Directed By: Kimberly Reed
Written By: Kimberly Reed
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Feb 26, 2010 Wide
On DVD: May 18, 2010
Studio: First Run Features

Critic Reviews

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times
At the heart of Prodigal Sons, a family drama in the form of a succinct, eloquent personal journal, is a sibling rivalry whose reverberations touch upon the very essence of human identity...
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
A consistently generous film.
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
Kimberly Reed started out to make a movie about starting over, but then life got in the way. It didn't make her job harder. It made the movie better.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
The problem with family-diary documentaries is that some families have too much drama for just one movie.
David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle
Sometimes we forget that when documentary filmmakers begin a project, they don't always know what they'll be filming because, to state the obvious, real life doesn't work from a script.
A.O. Scott, At the Movies
This is fascinating.
Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Documents a moment in a few very specific lives that anyone with a heart and mind can understand and recognise.
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness
A multilayered portrait of immense physical, emotional and psychological change.
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online
Some of the footage is harrowing, some of it moving, but all of it fearlessly real and affecting.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
The image on this DVD edition of Prodigal Son is almost as sad as Marc McKerrow's life, but this remains of the great documentaries of the last decade.
Stan Hall, Oregonian
This combination of amazing coincidences, sibling tensions and identity crises is a natural fit for the documentary form.
Fr. Chris Carpenter, Movie Dearest
An exceptional film...(that helps) illuminate the often painful experience of people trying to move on from dark personal and family pasts.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
Prodigal Sons is crazily overstuffed with material, but the material is so strong and so endlessly surprising I can't blame Reed for her reluctance to leave anything out.
Rob Humanick, Projection Booth
In an era of pop documentaries that reduce their subjects to gimmicky setups and patronizing lessons, Prodigal Sons is a near-profound palate cleanser.
Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
The past in Prodigal Sons is pervasive and formidable, to be sure, but it is hardly fixed.
Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix
[An] engrossing, unpredictable, often heartbreaking family-drama documentary.
Doris Toumarkine, Film Journal International
Compelling documentary featuring a remarkably appealing transsexual high-school star quarterback and her adopted, brain-damaged brother who learns he's the grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.
Noel Murray, AV Club
Well-crafted and intense.

Read all 18 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Jennifer X

It's pretty much everything it purports to be - the transexual transition, the Orson Welles connection, the sibling rivalry - no more, no less.
Stella D

former captain of the football team returns to montana for his high school reunion. as a woman. that's not even the most surprising part of this searingly honest look at a most unusual family and how u really can't go home again... or perhaps u just can't ever leave… More
former captain of the football team returns to montana for his high school reunion. as a woman. that's not even the most surprising part of this searingly honest look at a most unusual family and how u really can't go home again... or perhaps u just can't ever leave there. kinda shocked no one has seen this yet so i don't wanna say too much. streaming on netflix.
Walter M

"Prodigal Sons" is an emotional and personal documentary that despite its insight is actually a little hard to watch at times. In it, Kimberly Reed, a magazine editor living in New York City, is returning to Helena, Montana for her 20th high school reunion to see many of… More
"Prodigal Sons" is an emotional and personal documentary that despite its insight is actually a little hard to watch at times. In it, Kimberly Reed, a magazine editor living in New York City, is returning to Helena, Montana for her 20th high school reunion to see many of her old classmates for the first time since she transitioned from a man to a woman. For the most part, they are accepting, although there is a little confusion around the whole girlfriend thing. The same cannot be said for her adopted brother Marc who she has not talked to in about ten years. The origins of this can be traced back to when Kim(then called Paul) was the center of attention and starting quarterback of the high school football team. Through a strange twist of fate, Marc finally gets the limelight. Sadly, this does not help with the healing of this long simmering family conflict, which is exacerbated by brain injuries and the resultant trauma Marc suffered in a car accident. Like Kim says with sad irony, there is psychological phrase for who she is but none for Marc's condition.