Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Annette Benning
Julianne Moore
Mark Ruffalo
Directed By:
Lisa Cholodenko
The Kids Are All Right is a song by legendary rock band The Who. Not a bad song itself, but nowhere near the timeless classic Pinball Wizard. It's now also Lisa Cholodenko's first full length feature movie. Like many others before her she made the big jump from television direction to Hollywood. I wished she stayed to the narrow, formatted and restrictive world of television. Some people just aren't cut out for the freedoms of Hollywood.
My main problem with The Kids Are All Right is that it addresses a very important (and still highly debated) issue: homosexual parenthood. Nic (Benning) and Jules (Moore) are a married lesbian couple with two in-vitro conceived kids. Laser (Josh Hutcherson), the teen athlete with a temper but a conscience and Joni (Mia Wasikowska), the brilliant young adult with an academic future. They live a normal life, with normal family problems until Joni turns eighteen and contacts the sperm donor (at the demand of her brother), to finally put a face on the man responsible for their presence on Earth.
Then comes Paul (Ruffalo). A strong, earthy, happy-go-lucky type that clashes with the fatherly image they had of Nic, the clean, control freak doctor who's been the household's main purveyor. That's a pretty blunt application of an old plot device Hollywood made millions with: Nature Vs Nurture. Now here's my problem. The movie starts of great. Paul is completely off-beat by his new family, but he's a charmer, a breath of fresh air in their controlled, airtight universe. Paul makes an excellent case that nature can't or shouldn't be resisted. I liked him and to me, despite his irresponsible sexual behavior, he was the good guy all along.
But it can't be that simple. Lisa Cholodenko couldn't make a movie about Nic's coming to term with the natural consequences of her pregnancies. I thought it would've kicked ass, but somehow, the director (who's also the writer) might have thought it handicapped the vision she tried to portrait of homosexual parenthood. Happiness and fulfillment for everyone was too much to ask if the gays didn't win. Way to go and make this a team match and enforce the differences. So Paul's libido goes wild again and the victim this time is...Jules! Not the youngest or prettiest of his conquests, but the guy had to be irresponsible and taint people right? Even more frustrating (spoiler), Cholodenko doesn't offer proper conclusion to Paul. He's getting ejected from the narration and turned into a perverted hetero.
I liked the first hour of The Kids Are All Right. It made a case for tolerance and universality of love. People from different backgrounds can get along together. Gays, Heteros, Academics, Autodidacts, young, old, control freaks, easy going people. But no. A perfectly fine movie had to be ruined for some kind of foul, pointless political agenda. It ended up giving a bad, stereotypical portrait of homosexuality and sending some kind of empty, twisted challenge to heterosexuality. It's a movie that started thin with clichés, but ended up drowning in them anyway. It's sad because the actors do a fantastic job, especially Ruffalo and Benning that embody their concepts pretty well. A less egocentric director would've let them more room to face off and solve their differents with communications, but their spirited efforts are doomed by a terrible storyline and an interventionist director.
SCORE: 32%
