Film Review: "The Kids Are All Right"

Comedy and drama, The Kids Are All Right, directed by Lisa Cholodenko premiered in 2010 and starred Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, and Josh Hutcherson as the main characters in a vastly dysfunctional family. The film depicts the life of a lesbian couple and their two teenage children when the donating father enters the picture. Tensions between family members rise and fall through out, mainly surrounding the biological father, Paul. The biggest upset occurs between Paul and two mothers, Nic and Jules. Paul is in need of a redo of his backyard, which coincidentally Jules a landscaper, hesitatingly accepts to design. This duo then begins spending a bit too much time together and eventually end up sleeping together on multiple occasions. This sets the stage for the huge blow up of emotions involving the anger at Paul and Jules for ruining the family dynamic, Paul for being a poor father figure, and etc. Now in terms of casting, the choices for each character were beautifully selected showing the perfect range of emotions and backs up the likelihood of events. For example, Paul's character (Mark Ruffalo) is definitely shown as a socially lost bachelor who has zero idea how to act as a father, making him look like, well...an ass. Which is perfect for his role! Continuing on to plot and storyline, director Lisa was extremely successful in portraying the story accurately and in a timely manor. The only issue with the story I have is the likelihood of a committed lesbian woman (Jules) having sex with a man she barely knows and on top of that knowingly chooses the man who is her children's donating father. Slightly aggravating the way they alter a character's sexuality, but I suppose in the real world one could do that. As a whole the film was entertaining on both a comedic and dramatic level and was brilliantly directed.