The Kids Are All Right

Nic and Jules are longtime marrieds and loving parents. They have 2 teenagers: a son, Laser, and a college-bound daughter, Joni. Nic is a physician whose unstinting perfectionism carries over from the OR into the home. Jules is someone who's never settled into a career, rather trying different businesses, usually related to gardening and landscaping. They are 180 degrees apart, but unified in their determination to run a healthy household. They actually have family dinners at the dining room table and are very involved in their kids' lives: questioning choices of friends, reminding them of the importance of hand-written thank-you notes. It's positively Ossie & Harriet, aside from the fact that Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are lesbians.

Co-writer/director Lisa Cholodenko's THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a clear-eyed study of a modern family. The fact that the parents are the same sex is, not entirely incidental, but not the focus of this movie, either. This story could have been told with the more traditional hetero scenario. Would it have been as entertaining and sharp? In the right hands, sure. Cholodenko has explored the dynamics of homosexual (HIGH ART) and hetero (LAUREL CANYON) relationships before, with equal clarity and insight. While sexual preference may inform modes of living, human decency and depravity may not be dictated by what happens in the bedroom, or the mind. The director's characters live and sound like real folks, too. They're not afraid to be downright unlikable at times. Certain characteristics may seem like cliches and stereotypes, but cliches and stereotypes are based on real human behavior. Like the fact that Nic, who has virtually solely supported the family's upper middle-class lifestyle, is prone to nit-picking and judging others who haven't achieved her level of fastidiousness. How ironic that she tells her laissez-faire partner to "stop micro-managing" her.

Marriages and families weather all manner of seasons when they're together for awhile. We observe Nic and Jules' unmistakable affection for each other, but the years have also brought those buried tensions to the light, little by little. When Paul arrives on the scene, it's as if the dam bursts. Paul (Mark Ruffalo) is a hip, pushing 40 restauranteur who, a few decades ago, donated some sperm because he felt that he was helping mankind. His seed would be used by both Nic and Jules to father the aforementioned kids.

The process begins when Laser prompts his sister to call the sperm bank to try to locate their mystery biological father. The teens meet Paul, but keep this a secret from their folks. Eventually, Paul will be having dinner with the entire family, gradually becoming more involved in their lives. For 3 of them, it seems to be a good thing. Joni thinks Paul is way cool, as he grows organic produce in his own garden and uses it at his even cooler California bistro. She admires his laid-back vibe. Laser isn't as impressed, finding his long-lost paternal unit a bit self-serving, but eventually seems to dig him. Paul even offers some fatherly advice to the kid. This is a big surprise to himself, as Paul has never thought in those terms. Is he entertaining the notion of settling down after years of a footloose existence, having casual sex with his restaurant hostess, etc.?

Paul's greatest influence will be on Jules, however. She grows closer to him after he hires her to landscape his disgrace of a backyard garden. He talks to her like a peer, never bitingly or condescendingly like say, Nic tends to do. Jules has been the victim of neglect, too, as any stay-at-home spouse of a Busy Person tends to feel. This can be a dangerous scenario and indeed, unwise decisions are made that will send ripples through the happy family. Nic never warms to Paul, perhaps rightly sensing that he is a threat, an "interloper". Well, she does have one brief warm moment with the guy after she learns he likes Joni Mitchell ("you don't find many straight male Joni Mitchell fans")and has excellent taste in wine (she drinks a bit too much), but it's short-lived after she makes a heartbreaking discovery minutes later. The family will have crises and a long road to healing.

I've made THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT sound heavy, but mainly it's a comedy. Much of the humor comes from the recognition of personailities, the curt Type As like Nic, the ultra casual never-grew-ups like Paul, the could-give-a-crap teens like Laser. There are also some deliberately engineered gags here and there, and that Mexican gardener working with Jules should be studied closely by actors seeking to use their expressions and body language as effective tools for humor.

The strengths of this film, however, lie in the perceptiveness. The script is masterful, not wasting a moment as we spend time even with minor characters, like the boy who forever plays Scrabble with Joni but does not seem interested in anything more but friendship. All of the characters are well written and even better acted. Moore and Bening are powerhouses of thespianship. They make it look very easy, their seamless personality shifts, their use of eye contact to maintain the power of a moment, the choices they make. Absolutely fine work. Mia Wasikowski and Josh Hutcherson are real finds, too, playing Joni and Laser, respectively. They're not some hack screenwriter's idea of how contemporary teenagers act, but people you get to know. Ruffalo turns in another impressive performance, perhaps his best since YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. In fact, Paul seems like a sibling of that film's rootless Terry.

Guiding it, of course is Cholodenko. She makes it all seem so natural, so organic (pardon the pun). We grow used to hanging out with these people. We get frustrated with Nic's eternally pissed-off demeanor, even hate her at times, but we grow to understand her anger. We also want to lash out at Jules for her poor choices, but understand how they can happen. We don't feel the gears of a carefully orchestrated script grinding, never once. That also means that things will be unresolved, charcaters left out in the cold. Just like life.

You'll notice I haven't spoken at length about the characters' homosexuality. Neither does the movie. I was quietly astonished as I reflected on this movie. For all of the "alternative" culture depicted in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, this film has an undeniably conservative message: fidelity, longsuffering, family, hard work, maturity, character, these are the things that win out in the end.