A true-crime documentary that tells a story of one man’s greed and delusions, and how it affected the lives of hundreds who had trusted him. ‘Our Father’ is an unsettling and chilling story that outlines the crimes of Dr. Donald Cline. A once respected fertility doctor, now infamous for committing fertility fraud, a relatively unknown term back when he was being investigated.
A story of pain, suffering, and above all, injustice, Our Father does a great job in bringing to light the extent of Donald Cline’s acts. At least the ones that have been discovered and released. Unfortunately, that is where most of what’s good about ‘Our Father’ seems to end.
Our Father – A Brief Background
Donald Cline is a doctor and fertility specialist, who at one point had built a respectable reputation for himself and his clinic near Indianapolis. Till became the focus of a fertility fraud investigation. His story is one of those that can make you ask the question, “What on earth was he thinking?!” He was found to have inseminated a staggering number of his patients with his own sperm, without their knowledge. The result. He is today the biological father of at least 96 people.
As alarming and infuriating as that story is, what makes the bizarre case of Donald Cline worse is the gravity of injustice dealt to his patients. With Cline practically escaping any form of punishment, you can’t help but feel the pain for his patients. Hundreds who are still waiting for answers and some sort of closure, which one only hopes they experience.
‘Our Father’ aims to tell the story of these patients and their children, chasing some form of justice. And of Donald Cline and what could have driven his unimaginable actions. And while there’s no denying certain positives of this documentary, there’s also a lot it leaves unanswered, and a lot that doesn’t work in the narrative.
A Dramatic Recreation of a Real-Life Horror
The story starts with Jacoba Ballard taking a DNA test, more out of innocent curiosity than anything. Only to find out that she has seven siblings that are unknown to her as well as her family. And that is where questions of Donald Cline’s practice are first asked.
What registers first as a surprise to Jacoba soon unravels itself into a massive medical fraud that places Cline right in the middle of an investigation. One that will reveal the shocking extent of his crime that has led to him being the biological father of 96 people known till today. A crime for which he has been faced little to no ramifications. And certainly no punishment.
Donald Cline – Getting away with it all
One question that Our Father makes you wonder is, ‘How did he get away with it all?’ A large part of it came down to his favourable standing within a tight-knit community that saw him as an able doctor with a high success rate in reversing fertility issues, and a devout Christian and church elder. Unimaginable even today, there was very little reason back then for anyone to doubt his methods. As the film suggests, he seems to have stopped only because sperm banks started becoming more prevalent.
What’s more horrifying, and another reason why Cline could get away, was fact that at the time there was no legal framework in Indianapolis that could categorize Cline’s acts as a crime. The only reason his acts were revealed to the world was the advent of at-home DNA testing kits.
Perhaps the worrying part of Cline’s story is not what he did. But that there might be more of Jacoba’s siblings out there yet to be discovered. And the fact that Cline got away with what he did, and he continues live out there a free man.
What works about ‘Our Father’
The documentary combines testimonies from victims, court hearings, and audio footages with dramatic recreations. It tells what the revelation put these families through. And Jacoba’s unrelenting search for the truth, which involves the search for more siblings. There’s a real difference in reading a tragic story and hearing it directly from the victims themselves. That is what Our Father offers. Real people and their real gut-wrenching stories.
One of the aspects about Our Father is a simple audio-visual mechanism of a ticking number constantly playing through the documentary to introduce to every new sibling. What it also does is give an almost shock-and-awe kind of revelation of an ever-increasing number of siblings.
Our Father also gives viewers a glimpse into Cline. Touching on moments that strengthened his belief in religion. And how combined with his reputation they perhaps built a misplaced sense of grandeur that made Cline do what he did, without any remorse. With a belief in fact that what he was doing was ‘for these parents’.
Interviews with a journalist, a law scholar, and a state prosecutor add a another dimension of reality and authenticity, giving a break to reenactments in Lucie Jourdan’s Our Father.
Where ‘Our Father’ falls short
For all that Our Father does well, there is a lot it doesn’t.
The documentary largely seems more like Jacoba’s search for her half siblings than for answers about Cline. The only question being asked is ‘Why Cline did this?’ with no real answers. In doing so, it fails to go deeper into Cline, his psyche, and his persona, raising more questions than it answers.
Its overly dramatic recreation often ends up giving Our Father the look of a fictional drama rather than a real story, thereby trivializing many of Cline’s grotesque acts. A scene towards for instance shows Jacoba in a hoodie over a computer screen in a dark room. A scene more fit to depict a hacker in a fiction film than a victim portrayed in a documentary.
Another downside to the dramatic recreation is how it dilutes the real-life testimonies of the victims. Their stories don’t get the time they deserve. In fact you might almost forget empathizing with their stories as you get lost with in the reenactments.
The over-dramatization, and the lack of questions asked and answered make Our Father a story of what happened at best.
The last word
Imagine waking up one morning to realise you have some siblings living in your city, and perhaps beyond who you have never met. Siblings you never knew existed, or for that matter, not knowing how many siblings. That is the reality that Our Father shows. Unfortunately, that is most of what it shows.
This is a story that needs to be heard. But it is a story that demands so much more in the way it is told as well. The documentary may be worth your time if you haven’t heard of Donald Cline before. But if you’re expecting deeper answers about Cline’s intent and motivations, or the psychology of a twisted mind, I’m afraid it will leave you disappointed.
Mind About Matters Verdict
