Prodigal Sons: 3 of 5 stars - Los Angeles Times
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Prodigal Sons: 3 of 5 stars

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Sentinel Staff Writer

Kimberly Reed, who began life as Paul McKerrow, thought bringing a film crew home to Montana offered the chance to document her acceptance or rejection by her long-estranged brother Marc, a guy who had never been able to compete when Paul was the star quarterback, most-likely-to-succeed guy in high school, and who has never gotten over Kimberly’s sex change operation.

But as dramatic as that confrontation over “my transition” is -- helped along by Marc’s violent mood swings dating from a car accident brain injury years before -- Kimberly is shocked to have her personal drama one-upped by a discovery, mid-movie, by Marc. He’s the long-lost grandson of Orson Welles, a boy adopted by Kimberly’s parents.

Film buffs will recognize the round face and expressive brow as his grandfather’s, and maybe pick up that his violent fits resemble the room-trashing tantrum Welles tossed, on film, in Citizen Kane.

All the sadness and self-obsession with Reed’s personal and family issues makes for a documentary we’ve seen versions of before. But Marc’s ultimate revenge on the sibling who always had the limelight is in utterly derailing Kimberly’s movie once his lineage is revealed.

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Screening at: 4:45 p.m. Saturday, March 28, Regal; 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, Enzian.

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