My Flesh and Blood

Now this picture is something to behold. It could be that Ms. Tom simply has trouble dealing with people other than as nurse to patient, but that shouldn't diminish how profoundly decent it was of her to give all these very unfortunate children a real home. A fascinating document of a side of the human condition most people don't want to know

null

Yeah it's an emotional film, but to its credit it doesn't exploit that. Mostly it just shows snippets of daily life, from the trivial to the surreal, of this unique family and the emotional joys and strains of the situation.

Wears thin pretty quickly, but the subject matter is such that it will affect you pretty severely anyway.

Magnificent. Susan Tom is brave, hard-working and, above all, human: her struggle in raising eleven disabled children is extraordinary, but that Karsh does not shrink from portraying her "warts and all" is what makes this film most remarkable in my opinion.

It was all right. You would have to be stone cold to not be affected by some of it but at times it felt like it was just going through the motions.

The subject is fascinating, even if it is a bit exploitative. From a filmmaking perspective, it's rather dry, but because the story is so outrageous, it's not a huge detriment. It does raise a lot of unanswered questions which is a bit frustrating. I didn't like how the narrative seemed to be rearranged almost entirely around Joe after the fact, making it mostly about him with awkwardly placed fragments about the others thrown in. Feels messy and incomplete. It would be nice to see a follow up.

Susan is a SAINT. Heavy doc.

A much less sentimental approach to this situation than most directors would have taken. There's heartbreak and overcoming diversity, sure, but it's handled with a strong grasp of the complexities of each situation.