Cinema review: Donor Unknown

Sperm-donation sounds so cosy, doesn’t it?

You have a go into a cup, you get some cash and a lady is happy: it’s all win-win-win. But what happens when the zygot grows up and wants to know who is its biological daddy?

Taking a lead from a New York Times article, Brit doc director Jerry Rothwell’s Donor Unknown focuses on one such case: Jeffrey Harrison, a 52-year-old who lives outside the grid in a caravan with four dogs and some pigeons. In the 1980s, however, Harrison was a handsome, virile man who appeared to have all the right genes. No surprise then, that he became a professional sperminator: he was Donor 150 at the California Cryobank.

Despite a very American feel, especially in its soundtrack and laid-back pace, Donor Unknown not only lays bare the vagaries of sperm donation and privacy, but also the fun stuff: would your kids not only look like you but act like you? There’s poignancy too, as the sperm-donor kids have different reactions, some heartbreaking and some heartwarming, to their odd biological father.

Donor Unknown doesn’t start with Jeffrey. It starts with JoEllen Marsh, a 20-year-old girl raised in Pennsylvania by lesbian mothers. She always felt loved, with two involved and intelligent parents, but there was a part of her that always wanted to know about her anonymous sperm-donor father. She discovers that there is an online registry service called the Donor Sibling Registry, which connects children of the same donor, a uniquely 21st Century type of family reunion. She signs up with the registry. She lists her father as Donor 150. After three years, a half-sister, Danielle Pagano, came forward, also through the registry.

The New York Times got wind of the story, and reporter Amy Harmon wrote an article in 2005 about the two girls called “Hello, I’m Your Sister. Our Father is Donor 150,” and with that the floodgates opened. Not only did more half-siblings emerge, but Jeffrey himself happened to see the article lying in the trash at a cafe in Venice Beach, and felt a jolt of surprise. Donor 150? That was him!

The siblings featured in Donor Unknown are JoEllen Marsh, Fletcher Norris, Rachelle Longest, Ryann McQuilton, and Danielle Pagano, but there are more pending. Rothwell picks up the story after the siblings have all contacted one another, and after Jeffrey Harrison has come forward, declaring himself to be Donor 150. JoEllen Marsh, a composed and focused young lady, decides to travel to Venice Beach to meet her father. Some of the other siblings decide to come along. They know that Jeffrey is a bit odd, and there are interviews with some of the siblings’ concerned parents, who are worried about the entry of this new force in their lives.

Reminiscent of The Kids Are All Right, the Oscar-nominated film from last year in which Mark Ruffalo, a free-living organic farmer, is suddenly revealed to be the sperm-donor-father of two teenagers, the issues here are complex. It is not as though Jeffrey Harrison was a bad father who abused and abandoned his children. There are no fears of a second betrayal. But to find out that your childrens’ father lives in a filthy RV with 20 pigeons… will that have an adverse affect on how the children feel about themselves?

The opposite seems to be the case. In his first meeting with three of the kids, he becomes obsessed and panicked about an escaped pigeon. Within five minutes of saying hello to the children he never knew he had, he is stalking off onto the beach, long hair flowing, calling out the pigeon’s name, as the three siblings nervously try to help him. Life is too much for this man. Connection is too much. He has to launch himself above intimate relationships. His life, as it is, suits him. You can’t imagine any other kind of life for him. He is kind to his kids, hugging them awkwardly, riding bikes with them along the beach and calling out to the air, “This is the best moment of my life!” It’s touching.

He’s clearly not an appropriate father, but again, his role in their lives calls into question words like “father” and “parent.” The resemblance to his young children (all in their early 20s) is striking. All of them have identical eyes. They grew up in different households spread across America, and yet each of them has a yen for travel and adventure, something that seems to have come from that donated sperm of Jeffrey Harrison. All of them are animal lovers. They sit around together, young adults, laughing about how weird life can be, and how awesome it is that they now have one another. Jeffrey Harrison is the real star of Donor Unknown, and his presence is strong and unique. He is unintentionally funny at times, and yet he also has a self-awareness about who he is, and about the absurdity of the situation he now finds himself in. He is a riveting interview.

Egg and sperm donation is nothing new, but now, with things like the Donor Sibling Registry, offspring from IVF can now find one another for the first time in history. What does this mean for the concept of family? What does it mean to be a parent? Is the meaning of these words fixed, or is it fluid? Jeffrey Rothwell, in Donor Unknown, is not interested in coming down on one side or the other. He presents the issue clearly, with very little sentimentality, and a lot of humour. So let others fret and worry about what the word “family” means. The kids of Donor 150 (12 and counting) seem to be doing just fine.