Director Kimberly Reed’s debut film is a documentary running on all cylinders — melding the dysfunctional family doc and the transdoc into an engrossing saga that Variety aptly claims “will fascinate inquisitive viewers on multiple levels.”

Kimberly Reed, a film and magazine editor, transitioned long ago — leaving Paul McKerrow, the star quarterback and prodigal son back in Montana. Journeying to Helena to make a film about her high school reunion, Kim hopes for reconciliation with her adopted and deeply troubled brother Marc. Kim is surprised to find herself warmly accepted by her old friends, while Marc — who suffered a traumatic brain injury years ago — becomes aggressive and antagonistic, especially when he compares himself to the all-star football player Kim once was. Home stirs up old memories and both shadowbox the ghost of Paul — the man Marc could never be, the man Kim never wanted to be.

The film takes a mind-boggling twist when Marc, whose mental stability is growing increasingly uncertain, hopes to find his own true self by seeking out his birth parents and discovers that he is the only grandson of Orson Welles (with whom he bears an eerily close resemblance) and Rita Hayworth.

Dubbed “a brotherly rivalry between a man and a woman… and Orson Welles,” Prodigal Sons is a transwoman’s attempted reconciliation with her estranged brother and her past. It also is a tale of an adopted son’s lifelong struggle with his identity and his surprising link to film legends. Not to be missed, this documentary proves to be a masterpiece study of sibling rivalry.