If you're looking for something salacious or sensational you've come to the wrong place. This is a sensitive look into the unintended consequences, good and bad, of rushing into uncharted technology that plays with human lives, just because we can. In this case it is what most people don't give much thought to, anonymous sperm donation.
The subject of this documentary is the connection of the children of one donor - Donor 5114 - to each other after they discover they are half siblings. At first a few of them meet up online, then they, with their mothers, begin to meet in person, a few at first, then more joining in. It's fascinating to see them together, the resemblance between them is unmistakable, while the mothers are all as different as can be.
The strongest part of this film for me was the questions that it raised for these children. Most of them "knew" they were the product of a sperm donor from a young age, but they didn't really understand what that meant until they were older (how could they?). Think about it. How would you feel if you had over two dozen siblings, some of whom you didn't even know? And you were just a kid yourself, trying to sort out all the regular teenage stuff?
Isn't it a good thing to help create a child for someone who wants one? Yes except the children that are studied here over a period of a few years (when they are teenagers) were mostly born to single mothers - there was at least one lesbian couple. So these kids were not only raised without knowing anything about their biological father, they were raised without a dad. I think that added another complication. And the mothers really weren't prepared to help their kids deal with these issues.
Our current culture is changing at such a breakneck pace, so I hope we get more really well done films like this one to show us that maybe we need to slow down a bit and think ahead about the "Future People" and what the impact of our actions will have on them.
Oh and btw, you will fall in love with each of these kids.
