The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right is an engaging crowd pleaser, but it is not nearly as profound as it thinks it is. It is very funny and well acted, but by the end of the film I wondered what point it was trying to make. The somewhat edgy concept (edgy only in the most conservative corners of the world) has two women in a relationship that is almost identical to any married couple we've ever seen, which is one point I suppose the film could be making, but this is preaching to the choir. I guess the best way to enjoy this one is just sit back and enjoy the sparkling dialogue and excellent performances by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore.

They are Nic and Jules, respectively, a lesbian couple of longstanding. They are also parents--each bore a child using the same sperm donor (presumably to give the half-siblings a genetic connection). The older child, Mia Wasikowska, has turned eighteen, which legally entitles her to seek out her biological father. She does this on behalf of her younger brother (Josh Hutcherson), who is more curious about him. The father turns out to be Mark Ruffalo, a casually dashing restaurateur and organic farmer, who is startled to learn he has two children but upon meeting them enjoys their company.

The kids like him, too, but the "Moms" are resistant, especially the controlling Bening, a physician who has an overly fond taste for wine. Moore is more flexible, especially when Ruffalo hires her to landscape his backyard. A sexual relationship between the two blossoms, which of course turns the entire family dynamic on its ear.

The director and cowriter is Lisa Cholodenko, and there's a lot to like here. The characters of Bening and Moore and gently mocked, but I don't think it ever edges into the malicious. They are the kind of people who seem to have read every parenting magazine, use lavender bath salts, watch male gay porn, and easily use words like "fecund" and "indigenous" in everyday conversation. Bening, the dominant partner in the relationship, tends to be overbearing, while Moore is unfocused, dithering through a few careers. Their scenes together are dynamite, and come across completely authentic.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I ever completely bought Ruffalo's character. The actor did his best--we get a man in his late thirties who's never had much of a commitment, and the revelation about his progeny inspire him to think about family, but the relationship with Moore seems forced. I'm not sure that if I weren't a lesbian I'd be more than a little annoyed that this high-profile film has a lesbian character easily falling for the shaggy roguish charm of a man. Maybe I'm just being sensitive on this, but it smacks of the belief in the back of many people's minds that homosexuality is a choice.

The kids themselves are underdeveloped. Each has a subplot--Wasikowska is squeamish about sex, and Hutcherson has a loutish friend--and both of these wither and die on the vine. There's also a long coda with Wasikowska being dropped off at college that seemed tacked on. This is partly my fault--I've never bought into scenes of parents making emotional spectacles when they take kids to college. This is surely because not a tear was shed at my arrival at college--no doubt my parents were as happy to see me go as I was to be out of the house.

So, if The Kids Are All Right isn't the classic that some reviews have claimed it is, it is an enjoyable time at the theater. I especially enjoyed a scene in which Bening bends over backwards to bond with Ruffalo over the music of Joni Mitchell, and her reply to him when he offers parenting advice--"I need your observations as much as I need a dick in my ass"--will stick with me for a long time.