The Seed

I chose to watch The Seed because of its familiar story. Lesbian films surrounding sperm donor drama is a subgenre I’ve already watched most of and find to be pretty similar, all things considered. What I liked about The Seed was its quicker, comedic pacing and the fact that it does cover some new ground that other similar films, especially dramas do not. What I don’t like about the film is that despite being a comedy, it’s not very funny. Additionally, even within the realm of sperm donor movies, the focus of The Seed is very much about how that prodigious, rare commodity of white gold; cis male splooge is what this lesbian couple’s life revolves around to a truly absurd degree.

Ines meets Lucie in a bar her first night out as a lesbian. After a few years together, the couple are trying to get pregnant. After five attempts, they’re desperate and Ines fears it’s her fault. But at their latest clinic visit, Lucie discovers something. The clinic is watering down the sperm samples which is why Ines has failed to conceive. The clinic doctor claims there’s a shortage of donors. Unwilling to accept this answer, Ines and Lucie blackmail the doctor into helping them on their increasingly over the top quest to acquire some man semen.

I do appreciate this sperm donor narrative being told as a comedy. That’s a less common way of telling this story that I’ve seen. It does open up new avenues of exaggerated absurdity that the several dour dramas cannot access. And with this freedom, it’s not like The Seed is absent information about the difficulty of lesbian conception. The Seed is the first of these films I’ve seen that delves as far into the potential exploitation of desperate people trying to conceive. Aspects such as the clinics watering down their samples and making false claims as to the looks and aspects of their donors are things worthy of both discussion and comedy fodder.

But while the comedy-style pacing is welcome, there aren’t that many actually funny jokes. I think part of the humour is supposed to come from well, the come. Just a lot of people talking about sperm and I guess that’s funny. Which doesn’t work because we get too deep into what the sperm represents in a way that does divorce the word from its juvenile connotations. There is one good visual gag about a failed attempt to catch some sperm in an empty champagne flute in slow motion which was so absurd that I did laugh. But people just using the word sperm a bunch in conversation? Not exactly the height of comedy.

Mostly because it is a comedy, Ines and Lucie’s journey for sperm is patently absurd. As much as the whole movie is about how hard it is to acquire sperm, I increasingly thought that Ines and Lucie were making it harder on themselves than they had to. Plus, there’s a lot of their attempts that they give up on too quickly for it to even be deemed a failure. But of course, this is a comedy so we’ve gotta cover a lot of ground. We’ve gotta literally ask strange men in public for their sperm but after 3 rejections move on to some sort of literal criminal plan which is surely more time consuming for similarly risky results.

At one point in the film, a man declares he will not “donate” for Ines because how would that look in the middle of the #metoo movement? Which I don’t even get. This movie really wants you to think cum is more valuable and scarce than it really is. This all leads to the ending in which, Spartacus style, a group of men boldly stand up and declare “I will donate,” to a grateful and emotional Ines. These bold male allies to lesbians. Offering their services of ejaculation so that this female couple can be happy.

Part of the problem is that I’m burnt out on sperm donor dramas. But also, The Seed just isn’t a particularly successful sperm donor comedy. Mostly because the jokes largely don’t land. Casting Stacy Martin as the lead doesn’t help. Not because she’s bad, quite the opposite. Because I’ve seen Stacy Martin in some excellent, very intense dramas. Comparing this film to so much of her filmography really brings into focus how ultimately disposable the film is. It’s not an all-time French comedy and it’s not even an all-time lesbian sperm donor narrative.

Overall rating: 4.7/10

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