51 Birch Street

Growing up on Long Island, documentary filmmaker Doug Block (Home Page) thought he knew his parents Mike and Mina: a distant father, a close mother, a reliable, unremarkable, 54-year-old marriage that endured until Mina’s death at the age of 78 in 2002. No Capturing the Friedmans-style drama here. Then Mike reconnected with his old secretary, marrying her soon afterward, and while he packed up for a new life in Florida, the son picked up a camera, with some ambivalence, and focused his attention on learning more about the people who were the real Mike and Mina rather than Dad and Mom. 51 Birch Street, the surprisingly moving result, is a warm and honest portrait of a marriage at its most mysterious, and ordinary.