Sorry, Starbuck has nothing to do with your favorite cup of java or Battlestar Galactica. It is instead one of the most successful Canadian comedies of all-time, a heartfelt and frequently outrageous laugher with a wild premise. Oh, and it has to do with sperm. Lots of it, actually. But Starbuck isn't insulting or crass like The Back-Up Plan. Instead, it uses the far out and frankly unbelievable plot to make a simple but powerful statement about the evolving nature of family and how it makes us all better people.
Something to consider if ever deciding to donate sperm, the facility can use it as often as they want. Or at least they could twenty years ago, back when David Wozniak(Patric Huard) was donating at an incredible rate to make a little extra cash. Under the alias of 'Starbuck', David donated nearly 700 times in a two year span. Now a middle aged loser with a dead end job as a meat delivery driver at his family's butcher shop, David's life is one calamity after another. He owes $80,000 to some goons who keep trying to drown him. His girlfriend Valerie(Julie Le Breton), who happens to be a cop, is pregnant, and doesn't know if she even wants David hanging around. Why should she? His family looks down on him, he has no prospects, and he can't carry out even the simplest tasks without something terrible happening. He can't even perform a simple task like people up team jerseys for the opening soccer game of the season, which begs the question why his family keeps heaping responsibility on him.Oh, and he sells weed out of his garage. David is a character straight from the Judd Apatow school, an overgrown man child who slept through that whole maturity phase of growing up.
He's about to have a great big anvil dropped into his tumultuous life. 533 anvils, to be exact. David learns from a lawyer that his sperm was used to father 533 children back in the 1990s, and 142 of them are filing a class action lawsuit to find out who their daddy is. David and his lawyer buddy file their own suit to remain anonymous, but David's curiosity gets the better of him. He begins picking out some of them, now all young adults of varying degrees of success, and bumbling into their lives while hiding his own identity.
The film, written and directed with ease by Ken Scott, mixes comedy and poignancy to great effect, aided by wonderfully layered performance by Huard. His finest moments come while David is on his personal journey meeting the children he's fathered and attempting to aid them, My Name is Earl style, in any way he can. There's one woman who is suffering from a drug addiction, with David torn on how best to help her. One of his sons is a budding actor, another a struggling subway musician, and one a rather creepy goth emo who barges into David's home and knows his true identity. In the most touching moments, David is forced to confront his own imperfections and experience the truest responsibility of a parent as he meets and begins to take care of one mentally handicapped child confined to a wheelchair. In the midst of all this, not only does David reach his full potential as a father figure, but helps unite all of his kids into a close-knit family of their own.
A bit sappy at times with a musical score that can be a touch overbearing, Starbuck is undeniably sweet, funny, and features a number of fantastic performances from the supporting cast. Antoine Bertrand as David's lawyer friend, will remind many of Jeff Garlin(Curb Your Enthusiasm) for the way he humorously manages his buddy's self destructive tendencies.
Starbuck sneaks up on you in a way few comedies can, using potent humor and a touch of genre familiarity to worm its way into your heart and leave an indelible mark.
Trav's Tip: The name 'Starbuck' refers to a particularly studly Canadian bull named Hanoverhill Starbuck, who fathered over 200 sons and over 200,000 daughters around the world.
