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Would you donate a kidney to a stranger? Early in \u201cConfessions of a Good Samaritan,\u201d the filmmaker Penny Lane (\u201cHail Satan?\u201d<\/a>) flips the question around. With so many people in need of transplants, why wouldn\u2019t<\/em> you give one of yours?<\/p>\n In the film, Lane puts this conviction to the test. Seated before a backdrop, she mulls over her drive to donate \u2014 she cringes at the idea that people will think she\u2019s only doing it for a film \u2014 and explores the practice more broadly by interviewing doctors and other non-directed donors (a.k.a. altruistic donors). She pairs these testimonies with the history and ethics of organ transplants, including an impressive selection of archival clips. (I\u2019d watch an entire documentary about the Dutch \u201cDonor Show\u201d<\/a> that featured patients supposedly competing for a transplant.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But what begins as an optimistic piece of advocacy eventually veers into something more complex, ambivalent and even frantic. As Lane prepares for surgery, undergoing health screenings and drawing up a will, she grows increasingly aware of her solitude. A single woman without children, she struggles to name a health care proxy, cries while appointing a cat guardian and worries about being alone during recovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lane\u2019s grappling with these feelings lends depth to what could have been a pat participatory exercise. The film never draws a line between its subject\u2019s isolation and despair and that of the tens of thousands of Americans awaiting kidney transplants, but it doesn\u2019t have to. Like the deed of a good Samaritan, the work speaks for itself.<\/p>\n Confessions of a Good Samaritan<\/strong>
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n