>>REVIEW
LITTLE MAN
DIRECTED BY Nicole Conn
Monday, March 27
Engineered Air Theatre
It’s probably worth noting that I’m reviewing a documentary called Little Man, Nicole Conn’s exploration of the events surrounding the surrogate birth of her micro-preemie son and the controversial life science has granted him. This is not the upcoming Keenan Wayans romp of the same name -about a man who mistakes a midget criminal for his newly adopted son.
In Little Man, filmmaker Nicole Conn (Clair of the Moon) turns the camera on herself and her family to document the single most emotionally draining ordeal any of them will ever have to face. Nicole and her life-partner Gwen are the proud parents of a beautiful, healthy two-year-old girl (Gabrielle), conceived through artificial insemination and carried by Gwen, yet the two have the desire to add one more member to their happy little nook. Concerned with the health risks involved in carrying a child at their age, the two middle-aged women opt for a surrogate mother. However, with the baby barely entering its second trimester, the women are shocked to discover that their surrogate has previously unspecified health complications and their child must either be aborted immediately or delivered, 100 days premature, with paper-thin lungs, weighing scarcely a pound. Despite every doctor recommending abortion (not to mention Gwen), Nicole can’t deny her motherly instincts and commits herself to giving her son Nicholas the best life modern science has to offer –placing her at odds with Gwen and putting the stability of their family forever in jeopardy.
It’s about this time that Nicole decides to have a small film crew record the next 18 months of their lives – from the six months spent in the hospital’s Neonatalogy ward to the first year of Nicholas’s struggle at home.
There’s no arguing that this movie matters. From right to life and quality of life to the role of science in administering life (not to mention the question of why didn’t they choose to adopt), this film succeeds in inciting discussion. It also provokes extreme emotions, emotions that will certainly vary greatly between individuals.
If this was a PBS produced documentary bent on confronting these issues head-on, it might even be insightful. But it’s not. Instead Conn gives us a film that at times seems focused on presenting her own plight in a sympathetic light at the expense of her son’s.
As a filmmaker, you can’t expect to turn the camera on yourself and maintain objectivity, especially in circumstances such as these. Any issues Conn would like to address are absolutely overshadowed by the mere fact of her making this film. It’s a conflict of interest and it’s just not right. That during such a sensitive and emotionally draining time she would choose to compound the situation by adding producers, camera and boom operators to the mix of doctors, nurses and neglected family members is narcissistic and utterly enraging to me.
Little Man is part of Movies that Matter and will have an exclusive one-day screening on Monday, March 27 at the Engineered Air Theatre (Epcor). |
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