Raising two is hard enough but after that you sort of get the hang of it. The next 533 should be almost a breeze. Unless you’re in your early forties and have no idea you’ve sired this crowd and you meet a fraction of those 533 when they’re young adults, way beyond nappies and baby formula.

This is what David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) is faced with, a hapless meat delivery man with enough problems of his own, whose plan to somehow stagger from one day to the next hits an unexpected snag: A lawyer pays him a visit to inform him that a lawsuit is pending that will force David to reveal his real name, the one he hid behind the moniker “Starbuck”–appropriately that of a legendary bull stud–when twenty years ago, already in dire straits, he became a sperm donor, for a fee.

Now it turns out that his contribution was of such quality that the clinic used it over and over to impregnate 533 women. The story line would seem absurd until we read in reviews that it was inspired by unethical fertility outfits that have actually resorted to using the same donor multiple times. Now, the lawyer tells a stunned David, his offspring have discovered that they share a father and have banded together to force the clinic to give out his identity.

This quirky little comedy by Ken Scott, a bit off (as in all things Canadian) chugs along in the gentlest manner, as if the scruffy likable main character himself and his sidekick are leading you along. I hope you see the charming fable so I won’t reveal too much except to say that David/Starbuck discovers in himself emotions and principles he didn’t know he possessed and acts on them. The result could be sappy but it’s just sweet. Maybe the Canadian “off-kilter” thing. An American version starring Vince Vaughn is in the making, with the same director. Let’s hope he treads as lightly the second time around.

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