A Kind of Family
1992 · 53m · Canada
Directed by Andrew Koster
Genres: documentary, family, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Winnipeg councillor Glen Murray, among Canada's first openly gay elected officials, and his adopted teenage son Mike struggle through addiction and conflict to define their family.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the heartwarming gay-dad doc, so it's almost perverse how much Koster lets the mess stay messy—addiction, resentment, the fractures that love can't always seal. The film refuses the redemption arc, which is genuinely disorienting in the best way.
A rigorously composed portrait of kinship that situates itself in the lineage of observational documentary while interrogating what 'family' means in practice; Koster's restraint—letting silences and small gestures accumulate rather than narrate—places this alongside the most formally aware intimate docs of its era.
The decision to hold on Glen and Mike's faces during their worst moments, without cutting away or underlining it with music, is what makes this work—it trusts the viewer to sit with unbearable tenderness rather than sentiment, and that single choice transforms a story about struggle into something unforgettable.