In a World Created by a Drunken God

The movie's premise is easy to grasp: A man is asked to donate his kidney in order to save the life of his father. The catch: The father has never acknowledged this son who is the issue of a brief affair while the father was on a hunting trip in Canada. Complication: The mother is Native; the father, of course, is White. The man lied to the woman, said he was single. He was married and one of his children by his wife (who is not a donor match) has suddenly arrived on our hero's doorstep asking for the favor of a kidney. Pretty much all the action is between the main character and his half-brother, except for flashbacks to the affair between the Native mother and the White father. The suspense lies in seeing whether or not the guy will donate the kidney but the interest lies in the sub-text: Whites exploit Natives. Whites leave. Natives are ignored for a long time. Whites suddenly reappear, asking for a body part. Natives are told: "You will be a good person if you do this. You will be less than that if you don't." I think all kinds of people can relate to this sudden imposition on them of moral philosophy by amoral non-philosophers.

This is a very interesting and thought provoking film. It is about native/white, son/father, Canadian/American issues... I am a white person with a sister who has son fathered by a native Canadian. I have always been sensitive to native issues in Canada. The main character who is a native Canadian is out of the blue confronted by a white American who claims that they share the same father. Said father is white and dying in an American hospital... waiting for a kidney transplant from anybody... but hopefully from his Canadian son whom he has never seen except via one photo which he conveniently dropped in the BBQ 30+ years ago. This is a very good film, that is also a book authored by Drew Hayden Taylor, but I also think it could make for a very good stage play... It's about the issues, eh?