The New Child

The New Child

Filmmaker: Gini Graham Scott

Medium: Film

Genre: Drama

An archaeologist in Mexico uses 15,000 year-old DNA to clone a child who grows up increasingly wild

Paul, an archaeologist in his 40s and his wife can’t have a child. While he's on a summer dig in Mexico, he discovers skeleton fragments from a 15,000 year-old woman and decides to use the DNA in a cloning experiment on humans with the help of a scientist friend. He thinks this experiment will not only answer questions about what make us human, but he and his wife can raise the child as their own. He expects the child to become like other children when raised in today's culture.

At first, all seems fine after Harry, the scientist working with the new cloning technique with the help of a surrogate mother. But soon after he and Janet adopt the child they call May, they discover she has unusual traits that set her apart from other children and hark back to her ancient roots, such as being especially strong, aggressive, and fascinated with spiders -- which recalls the traditional spider woman goddess. After 6-year old May fights with some boys at school and climbs out the window to drum under the full moon, a psychologist suggests her behavior is due to her adoption. But despite efforts to control her, she becomes even wilder, engaging in a masked ritual and breaking the bars on a window after Paul tries to reign her in. Then, Harry, feeling guilty about what they have done, commits suicide.
Soon the secret of May's birth becomes known, when the police investigate and find records in Harry's lab. The leak of their findings sets off a media firestorm. Paul realizes May will never fit in, and he and Janet drive off to escape the circus and protect May, they drive to Mexico to take her to her real home. They leave May in the care of an elderly couple in a small Indian village and return to the states to rebuild their life. They are able to do so successfully, and in a series of surprise twists, Paul and Janet not only have their own children, but learn about May's unique success in her new life.

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