Anybody who has ever doubted that truth is stranger than fiction should see “Prodigal Sons.”
Here’s the story: Marc McKerrow, one of three sons in a working-class Montana family, has part of his brain removed after an accident and is prone to violent outbursts.
Adopted as a child, he discovers that his maternal grandparents are none other than Orson Welles, creator of “Citizen Kane,” and Rita Hayworth, the red-haired Hollywood sex goddess who was briefly married to the boy wonder in the 1940s.
Wait, there’s more. One of McKerrow’s brothers, high school football hero Paul, moved to New York, where he changed his name to Kimberly Reed and his sex to female.
This and a few more family secrets pour forth in the tender documentary “Prodigal Sons,” which Reed directed.
She uses intimate interviews and old home movies to tell her story, which never resorts to exploitation.
Most revealing moments come when Reed returns to Montana for a high school reunion. It marks the first time her family and childhood friends get to see her as a woman.