The Lost Sons

2021 film

Neil Harvey
Tim Cragg
Jean-Louis Schuller
Isaac Mead-Long

Edited byAndy R. WorboysMusic bySegun Akinola

Production
companies

CNN Films
Campfire
Raw

Distributed byWarner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution
Warner Bros. International Television Distribution

Release date

March 16, 2021 (2021-03-16) (SXSW)

Running time

98 minutesCountries

United States
United Kingdom

LanguageEnglish

The Lost Sons is a 2021 American-British documentary film, directed by Ursula Macfarlane and premiered at South by Southwest on March 16. It follows Paul Fronczak, a man who discovers he had been abandoned as a child and mistakenly returned to another family whose young son was missing, then learns the identity his biological mother gave him and the whereabouts of the "real" Paul Fronczak.^[1]

Synopsis

The film follows, and is largely narrated by, a man who was raised as "Paul Fronczak" by a Chicago couple whom he was led to believe were his biological parents. Born in 1964, he stumbled across newspaper clippings at his family home when he was 10 years old. The news reports featured his parents grieving over a kidnapped baby son, then celebrating when he was recovered two years later, apparently abandoned by the kidnapper. In the 2010s, now in his 50s, Paul began an extensive investigation involving DNA tests, private investigators, and tapping into his media contacts for publicity, to determine what really happened. After many twists and turns, he discovers that he was not the kidnapped child, that his real name is Jack Rosenthal (from Atlantic City, New Jersey), that he has a still missing twin sister named Jill, and that the real Paul Fronczak is still alive and known by an adoptive name.^[2]

Production

Ursula Macfarlane directed the film which CNN Films and Raw TV produced.^[3]

Release

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 16, 2021.^[4]

Reception

The Lost Sons received positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 20 critics and, categorizing the reviews as positive or negative, assessed 16 as positive and 4 as negative for a 80% rating. Among the reviews, it determined an average rating of 6.4 out of 10.^[5]

References

^ "The FBI said I was my parents' stolen baby - but I found the truth". BBC News. 20 June 2018.
^ "A baby snatched from a Chicago hospital in 1964 was reunited with his parents 15-months later. But was it the same baby?". Independent.co.uk. 24 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18.
^ Rubin, Rebecca (March 14, 2021). "CNN Films to Develop Stranger-Than-Fiction Documentary 'The Lost Sons'". Variety. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
^ Day-Ramos, Dino (February 10, 2021). "SXSW Film Festival Unveils Full Lineup; Charli XCX Quarantine Feature To Close Fest; Tom Petty Docu Set As Centerpiece". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
^ "The Lost Sons (2021) Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 10, 2021.