Delayed Reaction: Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

The Pitch: A documentary that begins as a tribute to a man who died and the son he didn't know he left behind, and then...grab the tissues.

All you need to know about Dear Zachary is that it's a documentary and it's a tear-jerker. For optimal effect, that's all you should know. I realize that's not enough to convince most people though, so how else can I talk around this?

The best thing the film has going for it is that Andrew Bagby (Zachary's father) was life-long friends with Kurt Kuenne - the writer, director, editor, cinematographer, music supervisor, and everything else for the film. Kuenne has years of footage collected of Bagby. After Bagby's death, Kuenne went all over the United States and Canada to collect interviews from people who knew him. It's clear that early on, this was intended as a personal film, inspired after Kuenne learns of a son born after Bagby's death. The story, it turns out, wasn't done yet. As it evolves, Kuenne stumbles into the middle of something that needs to be shared. That's how it ended up on Netflix rather than the shelves of friends and family.

I think the dream of any documentary is to be in the middle of a story as it's happening, not trying to recreate it after the fact. Kuenne gets to tell the story nearly in real time. What makes Dear Zachary special is how personal it is. This is a rare instance in which the filmmaker's presence in the film is welcome and vital. Kuenne brings his sadness, his anger, and the love of his friend to the movie and it's better for it. The editing is so personal, that at times, it plays like someone furiously scribbling in their notebook, like he can't keep up with all the ideas he's trying to express.

Of course, it helps that the story of Bagby's death would make a great Dateline episode on its own. That's where I don't want to spoil too much. Some of the principle details are explained pretty quickly in the movie anyway, but I'd rather not get ahead of it. All I will say is that there is one significant fake-out in the movie which I don't know if I liked.

This isn't the most polished documentary. Studio affiliation doesn't mean everything, especially with a documentary, but when I saw that this was produced and distributed by heavy hitters like MSNBC Films and Oscilloscope Laboratories, that sounded right. The made-at-home quality is simultaneously a strength and weakness of the film. However, the good far outweighs the bad.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend