THE STRANGER WHO LOOKS LIKE ME

US, 1974, 74 minutes, Colour.
Walter Brooke, Neva Patterson, Whitney Blake, Woody Chambliss, Ford Rainey.
Directed by Larry Peerce.

The Stranger Who Looks Like Me is a story about adoption. A young woman seeks out her birth parents and teams up with a young man who also was adopted. The film, brief, focuses on issues of adoption, the effect on the children, the legalities and the emotional realities of the search for birth parents.

The film was directed by Larry Peerce who made a number of feature films including The Sporting Club and The Other Side of the Mountain but also made quite a number of telemovies over several decades. The film was written by Gerald de Piego, a prolific writer of screenplays for more than thirty years ranging from Sharky’s Machine to The Forgotten in 2004.

1. The impact of this telemovie?

2. The value of the presentation of such a serious theme in film, on television, for viewing in the home? how powerful? The didactic effect as regards orphans and their emotions?

3. The film's use of television techniques, close-ups, confined spaces, commercial breaks, emotional impact?

4. The significance of the title and its reference to Joanne? The importance of the pre-credit situation, the photo, the family reseblances and the irony of Joanne's being adopted?

5. How well did the film communicate Joanne’s situation? As an attractive young American girl in herself, sympathetic? Engaged? The background of her home, her relationship with her parents? Their love for her and bringing her up? As her true parents?

6. How well did the screenplay present the pros and cons of her searching for her identity, for her parents? What were the main reasons in favour of her search? The main reasons against? The film's explanation of government regulations, legislation? Who has the right to know the facts? And yet the drive within the person to find out? How well did the film show the various angles on people's rights, privacy, the capacity for being hurt?

7. The presentation of the association, its aims, its cause, the nature of discussion about the association? The members and their emphases on themselves and their identity? Identity an an all-consuming cause? The rights of the various people in the discussion group, privacy, ability to cope with children? How were the points of view put forward in the discussion throwing light on the views of the others? What conclusion did the film draw? What conclusions would most audiences draw?

8. The presentation of the hurt to the Denners? Their trying to persuade Joanne not to find out? Her leaving home and leaving them? The years that they had considered themselves her parents and now the questioning of this and the hurt? The phone calls? The sympathy of the parents, the character portrayal of their grief? The welcoming of Joanne when she returned?

9. How important was the character of Chris? An angry young man, the nature of his hang-ups, the explanation of his background and anger? His sharing the search with Joanne after the initial conflict? His need for love, the details of his search, the house, the finding out of details, the Spaldings? The house and the memories? His tears? The confronting of the lawyer, his reactions to Joanne and hurting her? How much insight into the complexities of this kind of character and the situations in which he has been placed by life?

10. The delineation of the people in the association and the varying points of view? The people working at the office, the slow search, the thumbing through phone books, addresses, frustration because of officialdom's negative reaction? The holding of seminars?

11. The details of Joanne's search, her hurt, frustration? Ringing the hospitals? The pros and cons of her persuading the orderly to give her the information?

12. How well handled was the sequence where she met her natural mother? Emma, the woman in herself, being confronted by the truth of her daughter? The need for secrecy? The fact that Joanne had wanted to touch her natural mother and yet eventually did not? The fact that it did not solve all her problems? She said that an emptiness had gone. Was the encounter with Emma and the search for her worth it?

13. The significance of her return to the Denners?' And the bond with Chris?

14. Is this kind of telemovie exploration of such an important social theme, with such psychological implications, a valuable way of the ordinary person learning about such issues?