Starbuck

This French-Canadian high-concept comedy yields a couple of laughs and warm moments but its story is formulaic and undisciplined, while its tone is mildly reactionary and hugely sentimental. In 1988, David (Patrick Huard) is said to have fathered 533 children. Well, we all do daft things when we’re young. But his fecundity was down to a sperm-bank snafu, not reckless rutting. Today, 142 of his offspring are suing to identify the donor known as ‘Starbuck’ – now an amiably feckless fortysomething with heavy debts, a pregnant girlfriend and a job at the family butcher’s. Will surreptitiously dipping into his unsuspecting grown-up kids’ lives help him grow up? With David’s multiple offspring serving as conveniently bite-sized life-lesson fodder, it’s all a bit like the cute kid dropping in on glum New Yorkers in ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ – only, given the relative ages here, creepier. A remake with Vince Vaughn is on the way.