Matching Jack

Year: 2010
Country: AUSTRALIA
Run Time: 103 minutes

The fierce love of parents for their gravely ill children can lead them to desperate measures. Marissa and David lead picture-perfect lives. He's a star architect and they have a soccer-loving son named Jack. One day Marissa takes Jack for a check-up. Their lives are altered forever as Jack is diagnosed with leukemia and placed in a children's ward. Sharing his room is a very sick boy named Finn, whose dad Connor is a boat-builder by trade. In an effort to keep the boys' spirits up, Connor spins Irish tales and turns Finn's bed into a sea-faring vessel. But both boys will soon get worse if bone marrow donors can't be found. Marissa, at her wits' end, discovers David has been cheating on her for years. In a seemingly hysterical, yet understandable, bid to find bone marrow for Jack, she begins looking up David's old mistresses. If David has fathered a child with any of them, it might provide the sibling match they're looking for. With David shamed and largely absent, Marissa and Connor form a bond. Can love transcend all in MATCHING JACK? Kodi Smit-McPhee is particularly affecting as Finn. –B.B.

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