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Sarah's biological dad is a bit of a d*ck

posted 11 years ago by blitzhard56
14 replies | jump to latest

He doesn't see her for 30 years and makes no effort to contact her ... fine, I guess I can live with that. I guess he had his reasons.

What rubbed me the wrong way though is when it came to making the documentary / film. He wanted to do it HIS way only and told Sarah that getting other points of view wouldn't make for a good film.

He kept describing his relationship with Sarah's mom as 'so passionate' almost to the point where no one else could possibly understand. While I have no doubt that he loved her, I'm not so sure it was as reciprocated as he thinks. I think Sarah's sister probably had it right when she said that her mother's true love was for Michael, but Michael didn't love her the way the biological father did.

It raises an interesting point - would you rather be with someone YOU love, but that person doesn't quite love you or live the way you want ... or with someone who loves you with everything they have, but you don't quite feel the same way?

Anyway, that's the impression I got about the biological dad.

[–] quirkyrecords 11 years ago

Polley agrees with you.

That's why the last shot in the film is off Jeff admitting to sleeping with Diane.

It's Polley just giving us all one last reminder that not any perspective of this story is 100% accurate, and that we should question a few accounts, especially those we cannot verify, i.e. her biological father.

He talks about this passionate love, yet no one else really knew about it and in fact all thought the father was someone else - an affair that other people DID find out about.

Is there any one in the film that actually even verifies their affair? I don't think so.

So while we know it happened (DNA test remember), there is no real evidence that it was as passionate or serious as her real father makes out.

After all, it was a short fling at the end of which Diane went back to her husband and thought about aborting the baby.

[–] Black_Dahlia 11 years ago

Not only did Jeff sleep with Diane, he put his penis in her vagina until he ejaculated.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] wrath_of_jen 10 years ago

How was he a dick? He respected that Sarah was being raised by someone else. He has his own views on the situation, which is the film's major theme. And he seemed to have a passionate love for Diane that just couldn't be returned. I felt sad for him.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] paramitch 10 years ago

Beautiful post. I felt the same way. I thought it was so interesting that everyone was so accepting of Sarah's discovery, and loved what it revealed about her father (the man who raised her).

He's been painted as a slightly remote and perhaps cold man yet increasingly we see that he is highly emotional and just somewhat hesitant about revealing himself to people. He's an introvert, incredibly shy. His little monologue about talking to flies was weirdly touching to me.

So for him near the end to offer total forgiveness to his wife and her lover, to offer understanding to Sarah's birth father, and for him to repeatedly offer these really complex understandings that he just wasn't what his wife wanted (yet her death almost destroyed him), it was very effective and moving to me. And he and Sarah obviously remain incredibly close (which thrilled me, I didn't much care for her birth dad, who seemed egotistical and closed-off from others around him -- his emotions were all too big and fleeting).

I didn't love the movie (or think it was a story that actually needed telling), but I found so much admiration for her Dad (the man who raised her, Michael) for his grace, forgiveness, acceptance and generosity.

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I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

[–] timlin-4 10 years ago

Remember Polley had sex with a married woman with a family, and got her to abandon her children. At best he is a degenerate, though probably he is a manipulative sociopath with no scruples, and you could say the same thing about her.

[–] WDformerWB 10 years ago

Great post, MagnificentDesolation. Glad to see that someone else felt the same way I did. I call my spouse of 23 years the love of my life - and he is. We have no children so our situation is leagues less complicated than the Polley family's. But I know too well the poignancy and vagaries of how love ebbs and flows in sharing a daily life over the course of many years. The weight of that kind of history together, of loving and not loving the person you're with all of the time while you find your expectations, hopes, needs, tolerances - your very self - changing in surprising and even unwelcome ways, is considerable.

I felt as though the fellow who had the affair resulting in Sarah Polley's birth overly-romanticized it a great deal after the fact, especially because it resulted in a child. I felt for him a bit, but was also quite turned off by what I felt was an inappropriate "This is Mine" attitude in relation to the stories of others who shared Diane's life. I, too, bristled at his use of the term "tangential". Who is he to say that if Diane had left her husband to live with him that their shiny new penny of a love affair wouldn't have fizzled out in a few years under the weight of regrets and mundane everyday life that sinks so many other initially passionate involvements? Dime a dozen. Not saying their connection and passion wasn't real at the time it happened but to use that as some sort of authentic, exclusive ownership of a story seems a bit lacking in empathy or humility.

[–] paramitch 10 years ago

Very well put. I agree that it was a bit odd to see Sarah's bio-Dad keep juxtaposing the affair as some central occurrence when in fact, Sarah's Mom definitely seemed to have seen it for what it was -- an affair. No better, no worse.

So when the guy starts rhapsodizing constantly that Sarah is part of the tangent his life should have taken or something, my eyes were rolling. Sarah's mother had a husband, children, life, career, family, that would have been severely impacted if she had left. She chose to stay. The guy just couldn't seem to accept that.

And it doesn't help that I adored Sarah's official father (her Mom's husband, just to make it clear), regardless of whether or not he contributed to her actual biology. And I loved seeing them work together and interact. What an unusual, smart and kind man. I ended up liking and caring about him a lot.

I thought it was interesting that -- similar to her Mom -- Sarah at first seemed intensely interested in bio-Dad, but then seemed to return to the fold and to her lifelong Dad when it came to stability and everyday life.

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I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

[–] IMdb-IM 10 years ago

Sarah's mother had a husband, children, life, career, family, that would have been severely impacted if she had left. She chose to stay. The guy just couldn't seem to accept that.

He did, though. He stated it directly and wistfully.
I found both dads very sympathetic characters.

[–] paramitch 9 years ago

Agreed, but I felt that he tried very hard to paint it differently in retrospect. Which I can't really blame him for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

[–] fliphop 10 years ago

The weirdest thing about this film is how IMDB is how everyone who watched it seems to have watched a completely different film.

He didn't contact her because he didnt want to "cast a shadow" over their family. That is plainly stated, highlighted for several beats of the film, and is simple to understand. If you read about affairs, one way people 'solve' them is to just cut off completely. If you ponder it for a few minutes its pretty simple to understand. It solves a lot of problems, and if you really care about someone, well, probably dont have an affair in the first place, but if you are in one, then cutting off is the most necessary step for them to heal things with their family, and for you to go on and have your own life. You are getting yourself out of gray-area-nowheresville, purgatory.

His thought about the story is from an artistic perspective. Obviously it upset Sarah but eventually they must have worked things out because they are friendly on the film.

However if You, IMDB Commenter, care about Sarah, then try to think about how it would feel, for her to have made this film, and then log on and see people calling her biological father a "Dick"? She opened up all these people with trepidation and fear that it might hurt them, as any filmmaker does, and now, what? The worst thing possible.

[–] bbfrmrp 9 years ago

I agree but he was a bit of a drama queen. I am the most important person in the story. I liked the movie

[–] jessie-lane3 9 years ago

IT's show business. Of course he's a drama queen, Theyre all in show business.