A huge local hit in Quebec last year, Starbuck is already being remade separately in both Hollywood and Bollywood. But this small quiet film has a sweet humanity to it which I doubt will survive translation to either industry.
David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) is a shaggy genial 42 year old delivery driver for his father’s struggling butcher firm. Something of a disappointment to his family, he seems trapped in a state of arrested development, always letting his friends and family down and never quite able to make a go of life. He’s also in debt up to ears and spends much of the film dodging the unwelcome attentions of a local debt collector – despite his romance with pregnant police officer Valerie (Julie LeBreton). But Wozniak has a secret. He’s quite special. Wozniak is the father of 533 children through a sperm donation program. Only he certainly doesn’t want anyone to know it, least of all the lawyer representing a class action law suite representing 142 of these now grown up children all aiming to uncover Wozniak’s identity.
It may sound like a typical high-concept low-brow Hollywood comedy starring Robin Williams or Adam Sandler – and it may yet become one on its journey into english. But instead it takes an unbelievable situation (which incidentally is based on a true story – albeit of a Holstein cow rather than a human being) and treats the people in it with a real affection and respect to produce something at once alive and very funny.