51 Birch Street movie review & film summary (2006)

The story of the film, and of these modest lives, seems to be following its natural and predictable course. Early on, while setting up a shot of his mother, Doug attempts to do a little psychological digging, asking her if he's like his father. "Oh, come on, now," she says. "What're you trying -- you're looking for direct things? Nothing ever is direct. It's circuitous. Everything is circuitous. It goes around in very unpredictable ways." Yes, it does. Like her language. Like the movie.

"51 Birch Street" is one of those great documentaries that could not have been realized until the late 20th century. Not because of cutting-edge technology, but because of accessible consumer technology that made it possible to assemble and draw upon a library of home movies and video. The filmmaker could not have known, when he began shooting this footage of himself and his family, what form it would eventually take, or what subtle revelations he would (circuitously) discover within it.

Unlike the similarly home-made family narrative of "Capturing The Friedmans," there's no sensational allegation hiding in the basement at "51 Birch Street," though what Block does discover, like a 30-year cache of his mother's private journals, is enough to throw anyone for a loop. What should he do? What would you do? Unless it's happened to you, don't be too sure you know the answer in advance.

This personal, lovingly hand-crafted film offers a down-to-earth corrective to decades of comedies and romances from the Hollywood fantasy-factory that faded out on the climactic kiss at the altar. In 1930, the Gershwins wrote that "every happy plot ends with a marriage knot." But the marriage continues after the curtain closes on the plot -- and there are years of behind-closed-doors adjustments, re-evaluations and accommodations ahead.

A house always becomes a psychological model of its inhabitants, a projection of the personalities within. And so, "51 Birch Street" (named after the Port Washington, Long Island, address where Doug and his sisters grew up) is also about returning to a house that was once your home. We visit dad in his cellar workshop, where he has long taken refuge from the activity upstairs.

And, in an indelibly haunting memory-image that evokes Max Ophuls as well as Stanley Kubrick, we watch from a landing halfway up the stairs as mom moves from the bedroom to the bathroom in order to avoid being photographed from an unflattering low angle. "You destroy trust!" she says from behind the bathroom door. And she's joking, but she's not just joking. The next time we see these rooms from this position on the landing, the bedroom is being packed up.