A long-form sitcom overly pleased with its own progressiveness, The Kids Are All Right charts the difficulties that arise when the kids of a lesbian couple seek out their sperm-donor father. Nic (Annette Benning) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a gay Oscar and Felix, and after almost two decades, their marriage has lost a spark (not even the man-on-man porn they watch together gets them hot and bothered!). Curious about the guy who helped conceive them, the couple’s kids – college-bound Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and rebellious Laser (Josh Hutcherson) – locate donor daddy Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a free-spirit lothario who runs an organic restaurant and whose appearance throws the family for a loop. Joni and Laser’s reasons for reuniting with Paul speak to their sexual maturation (in Joni’s case) and desire for a father figure (in Laser’s case), all while practical button-upped Nic frets over Paul usurping her alpha-dog authority and hippie-dippie Jules screws Paul behind Nic’s back. Oh, what neat-and-tidy complications plaguing these San Francisco clichés! Nic drinks too much and starts fights, and Jules deals with a stupidly grinning Hispanic gardener employee who knows about her adulterous ways, scenarios that writer/director Lisa Cholodenko milks for Everybody Loves Raymond-grade humor. Predictably, lifeless wittiness gives way to broad bathos, with everyone eventually growing closer through familial upheaval. Throughout, Cholodenko’s plotting is so formulaic, her cast’s performances are so blandly competent, and her humor is so wannabe-racy (Benning: “I want your advice like I want a dick up my ass!”) that the film can barely mask its middlebrow pandering to liberal sensibilities. Self-congratulation oozes out of The Kids Are All Right’s portrait of a lesbian household that’s just like everyone else’s, though in a sense, it is, what with these stock characters proving to be just like the intolerable two-dimensional caricatures on your average half-hour CBS comedy.
I agree with every word
Posted by: menna | December 13, 2010 at 12:07 PM
I found this film offensive. It was not offensive because I disapprove of lesbian relationships. I felt like the Director did not respect the viewer's awareness. As the film progresses, I picked up on this pretentious undertone, where the enlightened Director ASSUMES that the narrow-minded audience needs to be challenged by a lesbian couple being substituted into the typical struggling american family equation. “I want your advice like I want a dick up my ass!" This line was truly the moment where the Director lays the cards on the table and grins and says, "gotcha!" only to reveal a pair of deuces. But there were interesting moments - I did like the part where she notices his facial expressions as related to her children. I believe that could be a confusing and attraction-triggering feeling to a woman who loves her children (and is drawn to them in a non-sexual way). I thought that was a great gateway moment into their affair. BUT...Despite some good moments, the film factors in the audience and an agenda to shock and influence, more than it does telling a story well. Still not sure how it got such high reviews - maybe people are afraid to say they disliked it because they feared being perceived as narrow-minded.
Posted by: Casey | January 06, 2011 at 09:55 PM
I found this film to be amazingly pedestrian, tasteless and witless... and MUCH too pleased with itself. the narcissism of this film... I am so sick of this genre of film: the "quirky American suburban domestic". Who bloody cares.
Posted by: David Brooks | February 26, 2011 at 06:22 AM
I completely agree with this review. I found this movie boring, cliche, and pretentious. And "overly pleased with itself" is appropriate, too. The writing was sub-par, the characters were cliches (of COURSE the kids' father runs an organic restaurant and apporeciates good wine ... PLEASE ...). And Julianne Moore having an affair was COMPLETELY unbelievable in the story - was just shoved in there for "drama". And Anette Benning's character was also forced and unbelieveable. Sorry, I didn't buy a minute of this drivel. And I can not understand the universally great reviews. Though I suspect it's a bunch of reviewers bending over backwards to look Lesbian chic. Cowards.
Posted by: Mike D | June 26, 2011 at 12:45 AM