You should watch the film before reading my comments. It is film worth watching.
This film, as the director tells us a few times, is about the different points of a view over the same events. I didn't find these differing points of view, as other reviewers have also pointed out. In fact, quite the opposite—the various comments seem to re-enforce each other. But I'll put aside this disconnect between Sarah Polley's intent and what I actually saw.
We have a daughter who discovers that her father, with whom she has grown up, is not her biological father; in fact, her mother has slept with at least two other people. The father is painted by everyone, including him, as a good father but incapable of providing the love craved by her mother. So much so, that when one of his daughters hears that she had an affair, the daughter is so happy for her. In the next moment, when all the daughters learn of their mother's exploits in the name of love, they all get divorced.
Sarah's biological father sees nothing wrong with his pursuit of a married woman (or accepting her advances, which ever was the case), and wishes Sarah's mother would have divorced her husband and come, along with her children to live with him. Their relationship may or may not have worked, but they had a strong love for each other—given the six weeks that they knew each other. By the way, the gay son is disappointed that his father was reluctant to talk about oral sex. If this last comment seems to come out of the blue in my discussion, that's exactly how it felt in the movie.
We learn that the Sarah's mother wanted much more sex than her father would provide, and the suggestion is made that love and sex are the same thing: Sarah's mother needed more love and sex than her husband could provide. Her husband knew this and was thus grateful that she had outside affairs because otherwise she might have left him.
Sarah learns that her mother had scheduled an abortion (of her) and in fact was on her way to the procedure, when she changes her mind. Her mother appears to have known who the true father was all along—despite having slept with at least three males during the period in question—as Sarah's mother sent the biological father pictures from time to time of Sarah.
Sarah's non-biological father, the one she grew up calling dad, appears to feel that he got the better end of the deal, in that he got to take care and love this wonderful person Sarah. He says that if she had been his own child, she may have been a better person, or worse, but that Sarah was special.
Did her non-biological father (dad) love her mother? It does appear so, and in fact when her mother dies, he is devastated. When he learned of his mother's affair, is he angry? No. He talks about how this revelation has brought him closer to his (adopted?) daughter and that he doesn't remember exchanging such hugs with her, as they have done now that the story is out. He says "nothing has changed," yet she is off being welcomed into the fold of all her newly discovered blood relatives, and in particular, bonding with her biological father.
Despite the trauma, no one seems angry, disappointed or even upset with anyone. Sarah in particular maintains a monotone and cool demeanor through it all.
Am I being critical of all of this? No. It's amazing and at least surface level honest. That's why the film is worth watching.
There is probably a story we didn't hear about how Sarah's father got into the position of seeing himself as so completely unworthy. He seems a totally defeated individual, but with a good heart. Once Sarah's sisters were freed from the bonds of marriage upon learning of their mother's adventures, I wonder how their husbands felt when they were divorced?
Sarah's mother was married when she fell in love with Sarah's "dad," and subsequently divorced this first husband. This first husband was not happy being divorced and gained full custody of their children (a first in Canada). Sarah's siblings report being abused by their stepmother in this relationship, and that Sarah's mother would cry endlessly having to return her children into this abusive home. I wish Sarah had more fully reported on this perpetrated abuse. How about interviewing the stepmother and her first husband?
The facts and interviews in Sarah Polley's documentary tell an amazing story about the nature of one family's structure and bonds. It was well filmed and filled with old clips. Its major flaw I suspect is in the fact that no one ever stood up and said something in an angry, outraged, betrayed and hurt voice.
