Starbuck (Ken Scott)

Reviewed by Rosanna Lapinski. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Starbuck is a heart-warming comedy that explores paternity, fertility and fatherhood with uproarious results. David Wozniak (played by Patrick Huard) comes home to find a stranger inside his house. He tells David he entered his home through the kicked-in back door. The man wears a suit and thick -framed glasses. David assumes he is another debt collector, like his previous visitor that kicked in the back door.  The man informs David he is an attorney representing 142 children that have filed a class action lawsuit to reveal the identity of their biological father, known only as “Starbuck.” Twenty years earlier, David had made several deposits at the sperm clinic next to his house for which he was paid $35 a visit. Through some sort of clerical error, David’s sperm was used exclusively from 1988-1990. As a result, he has fathered 533 children. From this bizarre bombshell, the movie takes off on a rollicking rollercoaster ride as dysfunctional David attempts to secretly father his 142 progeny-turned plaintiff children.

From this preposterous premise, the film employs a wonderfully creative dramatic device through which multiple vignettes are used to show how the nurturing touch of a parental hand can save lives. Like a guardian angel, David arrives at a crucial moment and gently guides his children to safety, succor and success. Although the children are stereotypical characters, this dramatic device provides hilarious episodes that allow David to develop into a responsible man capable of being a father to the child he shares with his policewoman girlfriend, Valerie.

David is given 142 folders with background sketches of his burgeoning brood. Overcome with curiousity, David begins to visit them secretly, without revealing his identity as their biological father. The first child plays professional soccer. David shares his triumph on the field. The second child is an actor, who supports himself with a part time job in a café. The young man has been called back for a second audition, a role that could start his career. David hands him the keys to the meat delivery truck (David is the driver for the family meat packing business), and tells the young actor to hurry to the audition and drive safely. The boy marvels at a stranger’s kindness and lands the acting gig. The third child, a young woman, suffers a drug overdose, and David rushes her to the hospital, and saves not only her life, but also her new career. These episodes are followed by random romps through the lives of David’s other offspring: a manicurist, a subway musician, a pool attendant and so on. Each child becomes part of David’s grand, extended family.  Starbuck is an endearing comedy that explores the meaning of fatherhood in these changing times.

Starbuck is a 2011 Canadian comedy film directed by Ken Scott and written by Martin Petit and Ken Scott. Patrick Huard stars as David. Julie LeBreton is Valérie. Antoine Bertrand is David’s friend and lawyer. Igor Ovadis plays David’s father, an immigrant from Poland and Andre Lanthier is the attorney representing the progeny of David’s sperm.

*The film takes its name from the famous Holstein bull that sired more than 200,000 female offspring and over 600 males during its 19-year life.  The genes of Starbuck the bull live on in his clones.