The Kids Are All Right

The film plays out like a sperm donor’s worst nightmare: he tries to make a quick $60 and 18 years later he gets a child knocking on his door saying they share the same DNA. Surely this can’t be allowed? If this is what leaves you pondering when you leave the cinema than you will have missed the entire point of the film. ‘The Kids Are All Right’ is as much about the laws of sperm donorship as ‘Juno’ is about teen pregnancy or ‘The Social Network’ is about Facebook, they are all just surface plot devices that allow characterisation to occur. In fact ‘The Kids Are All Right’ is not about sperm donors or LGBT rights to parenthood, but simply about family dynamics and all kinds of people’s relationships with each other.

The film follows one summer in the life of this unconventional family where Joni (Mia Waskikowska) has just finished high school and will be heading off to college, much to the delight of her two mums Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore).  While all this is going on Joni’s half brother (same sperm donor different mother) Laser (Josh Hutcherson) is hanging out with the wrong crowd since he lacks a suitable male role model. Laser craves this older male company: you’d be right in thinking that sounds pretty gay since his mothers also incorrectly think so.  Nevertheless, he convinces Joni to get in contact with their sperm donor father who turns out to be the organic restaurateur and playboy Paul (Mark Ruffalo), an embodiment of male energy with his rugged beard and pristine motorbike.

The first meeting between sperm donor and offspring is painfully awkward and that is the true charm of the film; this incredibly uncomfortable chemistry is to be expected from this incredibly unusual situation and none of the characters have any idea what is meant to be happening. This feel of realism is in every scene, from the interrupted ‘relations’ in the bedroom to the singing at the table and talking about the inauthentic feel of lesbian porn; these scenes feel as if they are only slightly enhanced versions of real family conversations (or is my family just very weird?). On top of this no character is flawless or likable all the time and each one adds to the drama that goes on that summer, drama that pushes everyone to his or her limits.  Again, the film perfectly reflects normal human relationships very accurately. The original script is rumoured to have been a lot darker, with the Paul character being portrayed as a manipulative, scheming guy who wanted to break up the family on purpose rather than doing it by accident. In the final version he is as out of his depth with the situation as any of them, and he turns out to be very sweet on some occasions as he tries to bond with the tight nit family. For me the change to a lighter feel was a good move by Cholodenko (the director) as diffusing the blame means many characters are at fault and this adds depth and reality to the story. It goes to show the difficulty of romance and staying madly in love when life and hardship gets in the way. It is also a nice to change to have flawed protagonists, no matter what their gender or sexuality might be.

In between all the drama there are some very sweet and touching moments where Nic and Jules are very sweet together and are like any straight married couple. They fight with both each other and their kids, but underneath it all there is love and this creates the crucial family chemistry.  Since the story is meant to be just one short part of the family’s long time together there are a lot of story arcs that are left unresolved when the credits start rolling and this personally annoyed me and will also annoy some other members of the audience. I understand that it also makes it seem as if the life is continuing after the film has ended, but to me it felt as if they had created lots of story arcs and never got round to finishing them. This is, however a very light criticism that does not at all mar the rest of the film, which is light, interesting, and overall real.

 

2:1 Nothing ground breaking here, but an enjoyable depiction of a new type of modern family.

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The Kids Are All Right

The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi and transgender) life-style is becoming more main stream and more accepted across the world and so is becoming more prominent in our media culture. More gay based story lines are popping up in soaps like Neighbours, Eastenders and Hollyoaks while gay characters in films are playing more interesting, less two dimensional parts. Saying all this ‘The Kids Are All Right’ is the first movie to fully look at the new age nuclear family, which in this case has Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian couple with two teenage children, one from each mum and a sperm donor father. When the kids get curious about where they come from they track down their biological father (Mark Ruffalo) and form a relationship with him. What I think looks great about this movie is for one thing it seems to show the complications and difficulties that arise in this new family dynamic, but at the same time it is not just another gay movie and looks at families in general, relationships in general and life in general. I think this will be a great film for everyone to see it and it comes to the UK 29th October 2010.