The Kids are All Right

The Kids are All Right

2010, Lisa Cholodenko

Don't let the light color palette and airy trees and open spaces fool you. This film means to be taken seriously. Lesbian raised families are now a norm in California, sure, and the kids are super normal suburban kids. . . but what's this? A sperm donor? Curiosity? What?

Enter the nominee roles of Annette Benning and Mark Ruffalo. They play the head of said family and donor, respectively. Both put in an effortless seeming performance. Both pull sympathy from their audience, and their characters hate each other. If not directly in accordance to the script, then certainly in accordance with their humanity.

That is, they are written as people trying to comply with society in order to nurture the teenagers on the brink of success/failure from opposite court ends. They even, conveniently, represent opposite ends of parenting extremes. It's beautiful. It's a p.c. American Beauty. Will Benning win this time round?

Honestly, I hope not. Her role in AM had a dozen more turns of emotion than this. Though it's brilliant to see a woman directing / writing up for Academy recognition, she tries so hard to present normalcy that the movie itself falls a little flat of its objectives. She even sets up a Chekov's Pistol in the form of a hot hippy chick with dreadlocks, and dumps her two lines out of a requisite five.

Bad form.

It's nice, evenly paced, well costumed, well acted etc. but it does not jump out and grab you and demand you listen. In fact the most interesting characters (son and cheater half of the parenting duo) are snubbed over all. In an attempt to be totally equal and forgiving of everyone, there is no lead role. The fact that Benning is up for Best Actress is a joke because she is written as a supporting role of Julianne Moore and Ruffalo, who in turn support the kids, who in turn support the hippies, who supprot Ruffalo who supprots Benning.

It's brilliant if you want a panoramic view of a contemporary family unit, post-Diablo Cody, but otherwise kinda dull.