CITYist

The Kids Are All Right, the first mainstream feature from indie director Lisa Cholodenko, is getting rave reviews from nearly every media outlet. So you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that this review is a positive one. Walking into the film, we already expected to love it, for two reasons: we’re beyond obsessed with Cholodenko’s last effort, Laurel Canyon, and we’re wont to over-expose ourselves to trailers and reviews (and thus, the good vibes). Cholodenko has an almost supernatural ability to strike realistic dialogue and turn somewhat small, quiet and yet infinitely tangled human experiences into riveting character studies. With solid performances from Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska, there was really no way this film could fail.

But deep down, although The Kids Are All Right is about two teens who track down their sperm donor dad behind their gay mothers’ backs, it is, in the truest sense, about a conventional American family. There’s angst, rebellion, overbearance and monotony. There’s dinner table spats, moments of tenderness and a lifetime of common experience, love and miscommunication. If you aren’t familiar, we’ll give you the song and dance: Bening and Moore play a middle-aged lesbian couple, with Bening’s character, Nic, taking on the role of financial supporter and household disciplinarian, while Moore plays Jules, a scatter-brained housewife with serious free love-leanings. Says Nic, “If it were up to you, our kids wouldn’t even write thank you notes. They’d just send out good vibes.”

Their two teenage children, 18-year-old Joni (Wasikowska) and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) decide to track down their sperm donor father out of sheer curiosity. Donor dad turns out to be a hunky, free-spirited bloke named Paul (Mark Ruffalo), who owns a restaurant and organic farm. He, in turn, provides a valuable outlet for the kids outside of their family, while simultaneously wreaking havoc on it. Although there’s drama to be had in The Kids Are All Right, however, there’s no melodrama. The fights are often broken up by humor, and never overdone for mere shock factor. In essence, they’re authentic, much like the film itself.