Film Review: The Kids Are All Right

by Ryan Ebling July 27th, 2010 · No Comments

The Kids Are All Right

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko

Starring Annette Benning, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo

Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol abuse

In The Kids Are All Right, Annette Benning and Julianne Moore play Nic and Jules, a married lesbian couple with two teenage kids, obtained through artificial insemination. When the older of the two kids turns 18, her 15-year-old brother urges her to contact the donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Although the meeting goes fairly well, the mothers are incensed when they find out. In order to avoid a rift with their kids, they invite Paul to dinner against their better judgment. Paul’s presence interrupts their marital and familial bliss, exposing weaknesses in their relationships. Paul, however, is temporarily driven to find some stability in his freewheeling lifestyle and wants to stay in the picture.

Director/Co-writer Lisa Cholodenko’s films serve as vivid portraits of specific aspects of California life. They manage to celebrate the virtues as well as (and perhaps serving mostly to) critique the faults of her subjects. When it’s at its best, this film remains subtle, rarely resorting to making the characters stereotypes. The characters are allowed to breathe and develop naturally. In order for this to happen, though, the early moments of the film are full of telegraphed, slightly irritating shorthand clues as to what kind of person we can expect each one to be. Jules, the free spirit, has a thick black bracelet and an Elvis Costello T-shirt. Joni, the daughter, is a brain and correctly guesses the procedure by which certain growths were removed from Nic’s patients, and so on.

Stylistically, the film is as free-flowing as the character development, sometimes frantic and choppy, sometimes unobtrusive and static, and sometimes very blatantly stylized, yet they cohere to create a very unique atmosphere.

The main strength of the film—which, as a whole, was simply ok—lies in its script and Cholodenko’s ability to capture the myriad ways we deal with interpersonal relationships. The encounters capture the awkwardness (apparent and potential) of unspoken agendas and the underlying feelings in even mundane conversations or when people don’t always have the right words to say. We don’t get knocked over the head with the effects of subtle personality clashes or uncomfortable tensions, so the human connections typically feel more genuine. To the film’s benefit, neither character growth nor plot really drives the film, so the end unexpectedly feels more earned and logical than calculated or manufactured. In the same way, the honest humor of the film comes more from what we know about the characters and the situation, rather than being just jokes written into a script.

It’s nice to find a film that doesn’t feel the need to contrive its characters and story, but still remains compelling. Although Cholodenko’s characters could be seen as inaccessible and tend to live lives that are quite far from everyday (think the pot-smoking record producer and well-to-do grad students with too much time on their hands of Laurel Canyon), she manages to find the universality of their struggles and their joys.