PARTING GIFTS

Another weepy offering from the prolific Allen (Somebody’s Baby, 1995, etc.), this one a modern variation on the classic baby-on-the-doorstep melodrama. We begin in 1976 in Manhattan, where British-born Kyra Latimer’s husband is struck by a runaway taxi and killed. That’s trouble enough. After the funeral, however, a woman named Jennifer Cullen shows up at Kyra’s door with a small boy, claiming that she is the daughter Kyra gave up for adoption 20 years before and that her son Jesse is Kyra’s grandson. Although Kyra has never been pregnant in her life, she agrees to take care of Jesse, whom Jennifer can no longer look after. So she adopts the boy and moves back to England with him. Kyra comes to love Jesse as deeply as if he were her own child, and he grows up to be a bright, happy young man. So bright, in fact, that he becomes something of a celebrity with the publication of his book Joshua Goode and the Blackfriars Warehouse Saucepan Lids. Unfortunately, however, just as he begins to achieve fame, his kidneys fail and he has to find a compatible donor. Then, suddenly, Jennifer Cullen shows up again, ready to announce to the world that the famous young author is really her son. Is this just a blackmail scam? Is she out for money? Is she deranged? And can she be convinced to give one of her kidneys to save her child?

A bit way-out, but just the ticket if you’re in the mood for a good cry.