HE'S NOT YOUR SON

US, 1984, 96 minutes, Colour.
Donna Mills, Ken Howard, Ann Dusenberry, Dorothy Malone.
Directed by Don Taylor.

He's Not Your Son is an emotional telemovie. It has a frightening plausibility, especially for parents of young children. It is about mistaken identities in hospital - when name tags on children are accidentally changed. There are consequences when one of the children has a disease and blood types are examined and the accident found out.

The film is done in the American television, soap opera style. It is aimed at the popular audience - and achieves its intentions. The film has stars from series and the production is designed accordingly. The film is directed by Don Taylor, a veteran of many movies and telemovies. The film is interesting in the problems that it raises and the appeal to the emotions.

1. The impact of this telemovie? Entertainment? Social comment? Observation of human nature?

2. The telemovie style, the style of American series? Treatment of characters, issues?

3. The portrait of the two families, the background to their way of life, the women expecting their children, looking forward to the births, the birth sequences? The impact for home audiences on the reality of birth?

4. The hospital sequences, the fact of the switching of the name tags, the carelessness of the staff? Audience emotion watching this sequence?

5. The delight of the parents in their children, the early months of bringing their children up? The film's attention to detail? Seeing the families with their work, fashion design, sports cars?

6. The hospitals and the examination of the sick baby, the blood type question, the authorities and the discovery of the mistake?

7. The plausibility of the parent reaction, the refusal to admit what had happened, relying on emotion and shouting? Suspicions of the authorities? Mutual suspicions of the families? The illness situation? The mothers and their reaction, denial, hurt? Their seeing their respective babies and realising their love? The effect of the change on each of the mothers?

8. The staging of the dramatic tension within each couple, with the hospitals? A loud protest and anguish? The audience sharing this?

9. The illness, the need for the child to have the appropriate-blood group? The court hearings, the position of the judge?

10. The sequences where the fathers were able to accept the reality, the hurt, love? The reconciliation of the two groups?

11. The effect of the collage of the two boys growing up, sharing? The importance of each of the mothers with their children - loving both?

12. The film's reflections on parenthood, pregnancy, giving birth, the loss of a child, the rearing of a child, parent love?