The biggest surprise about The Kids are All Right, popularly billed as “that movie about the lesbian moms” is that it ends up being so much more than just that. Yes, it features a lesbian marriage, between the overachieving Nic (Annette Bening) and the free-spirited Jules (Julianne Moore). But their lesbianism is simply the film’s backdrop, not its subject. The Kids are All Right is truly progressive, envisioning an America where same sex-marriage is so normal, it need not be addressed head on.
Nic and Jules experience the trials and the joys of any other middle-aged couple: watching their children grow up, themselves grow old, and apart. While at first they appear to have created the perfect nuclear family, with eighteen-year-old Joni (Mia Wasikowsa) off to Stanford in the fall and fifteen-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) starring on his school basketball team, Nic and Jules begin to unravel when the children seek out their sperm donor father, Paul (Marc Ruffalo). A charismatic bachelor living by his own rules, Paul wreaks havoc on the suburban idyll that the children and their moms inhabit.
Screenwriters Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg strike the perfect balance of humor and emotion, crafting a script that writhes with tension, awkwardness, and moral ambiguity. The characters are quirky and a real – lovable in spite of their indiscretions and imperfections. Most of all, in an age where dysfunction dominates the big screen, it is refreshing to encounter a family as fun and loving as this one.
The only real problem with The Kids are All Right is that it has taken this long to reach us. The fact that Hollywood has only just produced its first mainstream same-sex marriage film suggests that America still has a long way to go. One can only hope that a movie as smart as this one, will only encourage filmmakers to tackle big subjects – like sexual orientation – in similarly subtle and delicate ways.
