The story:
Millionaire wants glory, so he pays 1,4 million dollars so that 2 scientists can home school 3 kids for 12 years, to make them the opposite of what their parents are, in order to prove that nurture is more influential to child development than their DNA (nature).
The 2 scientists have one biological kid, so they train him to be an artist, because that's supposed to be the opposite of a scientist.
The 2 other kids are adopted: a girl from a family of idiots (so they'll teach her to be a genius), and a boy from a family of aggressive people (so they'll teach him be a peace guru).
After some years, the millionaire says their kids are average, and they gotta push the kids further. So the mom thinks there's something wrong with the kids and brings a friend who tells them they are alright. The dad tries harder, making weird psychological experiments. They emotionally break up. The children get away from them.
The millionaire says: Well, you guys did a major mistake, so you gotta pay me the 1.4 million dollars back, according to our contract. BUT, the truth is I've been experimenting on you. I wanted to see how far people who think are doing good will do unethical things. So if you let me write a book about that, I'll waiver the money debt, for me being able to publish a book about you without any of you having a say on it. They sign.
The book comes out saying bad things about the scientists, it gets to number 17 on the most bought books.
The kids read it.
The scientists barge in their schools to talk to them. The kids are annoyed they've been lied to. The scientists tell them it wasn't all a lie, and they love the kids. The scientists are carried away from the school.
On a second meeting the kids are fine with the scientists.
At the end, one of the kids is an artist, another is an activist, and the last is a lawyer.
Not the story/ my opinion:
The millionaire was doing a lot of hooker and cocaines, before and after the book project. It makes no sense for him to pay 1.4 million dollars on this project, not even if his intent was to write some other book.
The two scientists are far from intelligent, rational, planned or even knowledgefull about child psychology (even though that has been their job for 12 years).
The way that those kids get adopted, get taken away from the scientists, and are still put in a very expensive school makes no sense.
The way the scientists have problems with the kids listening to rock and roll, and reading porn, but don't care that all of them are making tribal paintings on their faces makes no sense.
The fact that these scientists would only be parenting/ teaching these kids and have no more work beside that makes no sense.
None of the characters are charismatic or slightly intelligent.
The way that these 3 homeschooled kids can easily socialise, take leadership positions, say weird without getting bullied makes no sense.
There's a point in the movie, where the kids are staging a play based on a book, and the dad says that the play was bad, because one of the kids was narrating, and that the story should flow from the actors. BUT HE DIDN'T WRITE THE BOOK (which means the scientist is an idiot)! AND THE MOVIE IS NARRATED (which means the movie is acknowledging that the movie is bad)!
So, in conclusion, if this movie was an experiment, what would we have learned from it? That no matter how much money a mediocre person is given (the scientist, and the writer of the movie, and director, and actors), the result will be mediocre as well (kids, and the score on the imdb), and it will make no sense for that person to have been given that amount of money.
Review of Birthmarked
