51 Birch Street

51 Birch Street, like the best of the recent wave of personal documentaries, is both a compelling story and an eye-opening bit of social history.

Through haunting home movies, Mina's diaries and interviews with Mike, a raw, riveting portrait emerges of what a child sees in his parents' relationship and what lies beneath.

What makes 51 Birch Street a moving revelation rather than a therapeutic exercise is Block's commitment to understanding his parents, Mike and Mina, on their own terms, regardless of what it does to his image of them.

A tonal triumph of true-life storytelling told with equal measures of tension and redemption.

The film has a compelling way about it. All five of the immediate Block family members emerge in full and affecting portraits.

This isn't always adept as storytelling, and Block's coming to terms with his own denseness occasionally tries one's patience, but he manages to make the overall process of his reeducation fascinating and compelling.

The joys of watching a man carry out his own therapy onscreen are fairly limited.