“For the Life of Me” is the most powerful movie I have ever seen about adoption. However, the drama of this film is not around adoption per se, but rather about secrets, the secrets of closed adoptions. What makes this film so tremendously powerful is that all of the protagonists are elderly adoptees. We watch as each of these men and women who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s struggle to find out who they are. To identify whom their birth parents are, to find out the reasons for their adoption, and to secure medical information, not only for themselves, but also for their children and grandchildren.

Although much of the movie focuses on the fight to open adoption records, it is the individual stories of the elderly adoptees that are such compelling testament to the importance of open adoption. I could not help but weep as an 88-year-old woman explains her fruitless 25-year search for her birth family. Doesn’t she deserve to know the most basic information about her background? If nothing else, this film will convince you that both closed records and closed adoptions are unfair to adoptees, and that the pain of these arrangements never goes away not even if you live to be 100 years old.

Take a moment to look at this minute and half promotion for the movie on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vRGaZ_4ffs

After you finish watching this segment, go buy the entire 72-minute film at http://www.jeanstrauss.com. Produced by independent filmmaker and adoptee, Jean Strauss, the DVD is only $19.95 plus shipping. IAC rarely recommends films, but we do recommend this one.