My love of family secrets stories–novels, movies, and documentaries–is what led me to 51 Birch Street, a 2005 documentary about Long Island siblings and what they uncovered about their parents after their mother died and father remarried. Okay, it was also the Long Island of everything because despite vowing to never live there again, I love looking at its Postwar history, and seeing what it was like during those early suburban years when my grandparents had moved there and my parents were growing up.

Doug Block is a documentarian and videographer and for this film, he turns the lens on myself and his sisters. In recent years, their mother passed and after only a few months, their father remarried his longtime secretary. Dad seems happy, but there are other questions. Then, when Doug uncovers his mother’s diary, secrets are revealed and even more questions are asked. What follows is the effort to answer them.

What makes 51 Birch Street different from some other family secrets documentaries is there’s nothing horrific lying in wait, like 2003’s Capturing the Friedmans. It’s ordinary. Their neighborhood in Port Washington is like so many others, the kids led regular lives, and the stresses and concerns of their parents–especially their mother–are those of so many others of the time. And the way Block uses home movies and old interview with his mother filmed with camcorders and other video cameras all feel authentic.

Right now, 51 Birch Street is available on Kanopy and while it’s not an explosive documentary by any means, it’s a nice family story and incredibly well done.

Watch or Skip?

Watch.