MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

The Kids Are All Right Rated R

.  Directed by Lisa Cholodenko.  Starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening

Photo © 2010 Focus Features
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

Not since 1993’s The Piano have I seen a critically acclaimed film that I have liked less.  I just don’t get it.

The Kids Are All Right has been praised as the first major crossover film that depicts a same-sex family as relatively normal.  And, while it’s true that the two teenage “kids” in the film, 18-year-old Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) are intelligent and caring and are loved by their moms, there is really nothing on screen to explain how they got that way.

Nic (Bening) is a OB-GYN doctor and the breadwinner in the family; Jules (Moore) is the stay-at-home-mom who has never really settled on an occupation.  While their conversations are down-to-earth and believable, they spend an inordinate amount of time flirting with each other and trying to grab some private moments for themselves.  There’s really not much actual engagement with their children, apart from mealtime (and I’ll give them credit for prioritizing that).
 
Daughter Joni has just turned 18, which gives her the right to seek out her biological father (whose sperm was used to artificially inseminate both Nic and Jules, three years apart).  With the moms’ permission, Joni makes contact with Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a free-spirited manly man who grows organic vegetables and runs a groovy organic restaurant.  Before you know it, Paul is ingratiating himself with the family, hitting it off right away with the children, but meeting some resistance from Nic.  Comedic complications will ensue.

Without giving the plot away, you need to know that the film turns into a silly Baby Boomer sex farce, something similar to last year’s It’s Complicated. 

I was most surprised by how quickly Paul was accepted into the family and how just a couple of weeks with a birth father (and a fairly immature dad at that) could prove liberating to both children, empowering them in ways that a lifetime with their mothers could not.

This may just be a personal matter with me. I have not found absentee biological parents to be particularly helpful in real life situations.  I am also weary of arrested development movies in which grownups act nutty and immature when it comes to sex, regardless of orientation.  This is one grueling, laborious, boring and tedious movie. 




Pitchfork/Halo Ratings:
One halo.
There’s some love to be found in the midst of this hippy-dippy comedy-drama..
Four pitchforks.
Nudity, a couple of quick but graphic sex scenes, some swearing, teenage drug and alcohol use

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