The Kids Are All Right (2010)

'THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

This indie critical darling is one of the best reviewed movies of the year and up until the climax I thought it was a pretty impressive little film. It is a well acted and realistic character study though with the likes of Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Josh Hutcherson and 'ALICE IN WONDERLAND's Mia Wasikowska. It's directed and co-written by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg (who also wrote 'KEEPING THE FAITH' and co-wrote 'THE GIRL NEXT DOOR', which I'm a big fan of both). The acting is all impressive, especially Ruffalo and Bening. Moore is good but she's been much better, maybe it's just the character she's playing here that doesn't give her as much to work with. The directing is adequate and fitting to the material and the screenplay is full of natural and believable characters and dialog. Even the ending, which I didn't like, seems believable it's just that it turns the film into a much less valuable learning lesson.

The film tells the story of Joni (Wasikowska) and Laser (Hutcherson) a brother and sister conceived through artificial insemination by their unhappy mothers Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore). Joni is Nic's biological daughter and Laser is Jule's biological son and they were both conceived from the same sperm donor Paul (Ruffalo). On her eighteenth birthday, when she's legally able to do so without the consent of her mother, Joni contacts her biological father and she and Laser meet him secretly. Later their mothers find out about this and before allowing them to see him again demand to meet him as well. Nic, the controlling working mother, is very upset by the sudden involvement of Paul in her children lives but Jules (who has mostly been a stay at home mom) warms to him after he hires her to design and construct his back yard. Paul is a free spirited, fun loving co-op farmer and restaurant owner. This clashes with Nic but the rest of the family enjoys spending time with him and he really learns to love them as well. Complications arise.

I was really fascinated by all of the characters and learned to really like them, all except for maybe Nic who was just a little to controlling and self righteous (but believable). Paul to me was the most relate-able and likable character and the story and growth of all of the characters kind of revolve around him. Without giving away too much the movie ends in conflict and one of the characters is sort of used and abused and left with a lot of unfair judgment placed upon him. It is realistic and believable though it just seems like the movie is making heroes out of the wrong characters and villains out of others, that don't deserve it. This left me very much disappointed in the movie as a whole and that's why I can't overwhelmingly recommend it.

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Fmovies: OK, so here is what is going on with The Kids Are All Right. When I think of Lesbian couples the image of the family portrayed by the stars of this movie comes to mind. I live in Kentucky so I don't ever really come into contact with any established lesbian couples, but I remember watching this video in a Sociology class about proposition 8 that featured all of these Kentucky based gay couples whose wholesomeness and nuclear family awesomeness were supposed to convince me that gay people should be allowed to adopt kids. For the record it didn't need to because I'm completely for gay people doing anything they want, but if I was ignorant then I might have been convinced. I mean, the couples were perfect, upstanding members of the community, their kids were involved in sports and clubs and they all just screamed 'It's Okay to be Gay and Have Kids!'.

What I most remember is that the families kind of all had this lingering desperation in their smiles, like were trying harder to be happy than most people because they were aware that other people would be judging them based on their ability to be happy under the scrutiny of social judgment. The family in the movie, Nic (Annette Benning), Jules (Julianne Moore), Lazer(Josh Hutcherson), and Joni (Mia Wasilowska), kind of all have that same desperation lingering around them. The film basically centers around what happens when the tension brought on by that added responsibility is broken by the intrusion of an outsider.

That intruder is Mark Ruffalo. I think the evolution of his character is one of the most interesting parts of the film. When we first meet Mark, he's just so cool. Everybody wants to be like him. Relaxed, carefree, seemingly very open and with an uncanny ability to understand and relate to people. He grows vegetables, doesn't hurt the environment and has sex with YaYa from America's Next Top Model. He seems like the opposite of Nic, the uptight, control freak, who's very traditional and leads a very traditional life despite or in spite of her gay lifestyle. So you think, 'oh, this movie is going to be about an outsider coming into a family and repairing the relationships within it'. Nic will loosen up and the kids will be able to open up to people because someone finally understands them. But unfortunately film hasn't been that neat and tidy since the 1930s. In this film, certain things come into play that switches our perspective and we come to identify more with Nic's character than we really expected. But we share sympathy with every character. At the end, we actually have the most sympathy for Mark, I would say.

This switch was unexpected and I think it makes the film special and more worthy than just a farce about a Lesbian couple and a straight guy. The best films are ones in which our expectations are inverted, I think. A film should be like a beautiful unopened flower. The bud is beautiful and then it opens, changes and becomes even more beautiful because of those changes. I know that sounds all preachy and lame but if you can't be preachy and lame on the internet than where can you?

My favorite parts of the film were where I saw flashes of my own relationships portrayed in situations presented by the characters. The conflict between Nic and Jules, where they love each other, accept each other, but clearly don't always like each other, injects the film with humor while at the same time serving as a painful reminder of how hard it is to settle down. That struggle to just