Movie Review: Starbuck

It has been a while since a film this unique has come out. Starbuck is a French film set in Quebec about a character named David Wozniak who is in his forties and is being haunted by a past decision that he made to donate sperm while in his twenties. It is a story that is very well done and extremely relatable, especially if you are no longer in your twenties and have some wisdom by way of 20/20 hindsight. When you are young it is hard to believe that decisions that you make actually do have consequences and this story illustrates this better than any movie that I have seen. Not only did he donate sperm, he donated about 600 times in the period of a few years to earn over $25,000. Not only is this figure shocking, but thanks to the decision of the morally ambiguous sperm bank that collected David’s donations, he learns that his sperm was the only one used during that period of time and he ended up fathering over 500 children. It is hard to imagine a premise like this to be even remotely possible in the real world, but Starbuck is done so well that it seems totally plausible.

So, imagine David’s surprise when a lawyer shows up as his apartment with a class action suit filed by 142 of his offspring who want to know their biological father’s true identity. It is the final piece in the puzzle for these kids as far as where they came from. As a viewer it is hard to choose their side over David’s and vice versa. It is understandable that a child would want to know their own ancestry and has the right to know, but on the other hand a sperm donor (as in David’s case) does so anonymously and has the right to remain that way.

[springboard type=”video” id=”689677″ player=”cnim002″ width=”560″ height=”315″ ]

Even though David is the proverbial (and often times trite) slacker, he is a very easy character to root for thanks to the solid performance by Patrick Huard, a French Canadian actor from Montreal, Quebec. Though I have never seen Huard in anything, I am impressed by his resume which includes film and television acting in addition to stand-up comedy. There is something subtle about Huard’s humor and sincere about his screen presence that makes it impossible not to like his portrayal of David Wozniak. David is the classic guy who repeatedly tried to do the right thing but somehow always manages to screw it up. In addition to the pending lawsuit, David and his on-again/off-again girlfriend are faced with an unplanned pregnancy, and if that wasn’t enough for this poor guy, he owes some very scary men roughly around $80,000. Clearly nothing in David’s life is stable and though we can predict that he is going to turn things around, it is still compelling to watch from start to finish.

Patrick Huard in “Starbuck.” Photo by Jan Thijs – © 2013 – Entertainment One.

There is really nothing about Starbuck that I did not like. My only small speck of a criticism would be that if anything there may be too much going on with the story. It is at times hard to keep all aspects of the film straight as more and more events seem to unfold at every turn. I hate to complain about this, since the alternative being not enough going on in a story is almost unbearable to me. I would gladly take the former any day that ends in y since I cannot stand to be bored in the movie theatre. Those of you who historically avoid foreign movies with subtitles, I would urge you to reconsider. Though the subtitles are challenging in the beginning of the film, by about twenty minutes into the story, you become so engaged that you can experience the story through the actors’ expressions, movements, and body language which make the subtitles almost unnecessary. This statement does not intend to take anything away from the writers of the film for it is clear that all aspects of Starbuck, unlike its main character, had it together in order to make a highly successful and enjoyable movie experience.