Earlier this year, a movie came out that purported to examine contemporary feelings about adoption. The dour Mother and Child was oddly conservative in its insistence that every child needs its biological parents. Now, along comes a film that acts as a timely corrective to Mother and Child‘s moralizing: Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko’s (Laurel Canyon, High Art) excellent The Kids Are All Right does full justice to the complexity and flexibility of the modern family.
Teenagers Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) have two moms: serious, uptight Nic (Annette Bening) and flighty dilettante Jules (Julianne Moore). The kids were conceived via artificial insemination, both from the same sperm donor; their family life is functional in the dysfunctional manner of any household inhabited by multiple teenagers.
When Joni turns 18, her younger brother urges her to seek out the identity of their donor. A few phone calls later, the kids are having dinner with their biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Dinner is excruciatingly awkward, but Paul’s good intentions are clear—when Laser asks him why he decided to donate sperm, Paul struggles to provide the kid with an origin story more meaningful than “I needed the cash.”
Nic and Jules are initially suspicious of Paul’s interest in their kids, and disappointed to find that the man who was studying international relations when they selected his sperm went on to drop out of college and open a restaurant. (While Kids is essentially an extended ad for gay marriage, Cholodenko doesn’t spare these middle-class lesbians scrutiny; their snobbery and pretense provide much of the film’s humor.) Jules soon warms to him, however, and shortly thereafter, the two begin an affair (brace yourself for a scene in which Jules, who’s been in a relationship with a woman for 20 years, goes crazy for cock). After years of bachelor living, Paul convinces himself that he’s ready to become a family man—and the family he wants is Jules and the children.
There’s a horror movie premise buried underneath Kids’ bobo veneer—witness Nic’s growing discomfort with the role of Paul in her family’s life, even as the audience is privy to how much worse things are than Nic suspects. But this is no Fatal Attraction, and Ruffalo’s rumpled character is basically decent—his flaw is that he thinks he can take a shortcut to adulthood, stealing the things he wants instead of earning them. This is a film that allows its characters to be complicated, and it’s quietly revolutionary in its upending of the conventions of the cinematic family. 
Ok, I was waiting for a review from the Stranger, because I’ve been hearing consistently good things about this movie but can’t get over the “long-time lesbian suddenly desires cock/sperm donor suddenly urgent to steal family he never needed before.” I assume there’s something in the presentation that makes it better than it sounds? I mean, your review is obviously positive … but more clarification, please?
Yeah, I was having the same problem with the plot of this movie. It’s odd to me that there isn’t more discussion of this “lesbian wants dick” thing in the Stranger.
This movie is a grim warning to lesbians everywhere about the dangers of fraternizing with straight men.
Actually, I just saw it last night. The characters were beautifully written and acted. Both the characters and plot challenge stereotypes such the idea that all lesbians have an acute aversion to penises, and they suggests that a lesbian marriage can both be threatened by a heterosexual affair and survive it.
I do wish there were more movies featuring lesbians interacting with straight men. Seems like a largely untapped genre.
Allison: You’re straight, aren’t you? Yeah, I guessed that. And your hyperpositive review has convinced me not to pay to see this movie.
seandr, on the other hand, your review has convinced me it might be worth illegally downloading. Why aren’t *you* writing for The Stranger?
In the context of the movie, it’s fluid. There’s never any questioning of Jules’ sexuality afterward, she even says at one point, if I remember correctly, “I’m a lesbian!”
The affair is more about him being able to make her feel sexy and appreciated more than providing her with a cock. There’s so much more to human sexuality than penis or vagina.
Really? Really??!! So as soon as a long-term lesbian relationship is threatened by the continuous presence of a charismatic straight guy, one of women has to ‘suddenly love cock’? You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this the only way the producers could sell this movie to the mainstream industry? To show a straight guy nailing a lesbian? I was down to see this movie until I watched the trailer and realized that, of course, the most interesting plot twist in this movie is that the ‘fun-loving’ half of the pair likes dick. This film is a disservice to lesbians everywhere. It does nothing more than play into the paternalistic societal view that lesbians are just temporarily lesbians, until the right guy comes along and swoops them off of their feet with a cock. Fuck you. I, as a lesbian in a committed relationship, am personally offended. You have to be fucking kidding me, Stranger, for not chastising this movie and telling people the way it really fucking is: another excuse for straight people to believe that being gay or lesbian is a temporary situation, and that we really can just “choose” what side of the line to be on, provided the ‘right person’ comes along. Give me a break.
The movie is emphatically NOT about Mark Ruffalo’s foxiness straightening out Julianne Moore, and if you jump to the conclusion that it is, you’re really going to miss out on one of the better movies of the year.
Er. Lamp, you might think about actually seeing the movie before you get so up in arms. This movie was revolutionary in the way that their homosexuality was NOT addressed – no scenes where the kids were chastised by their peers for having two mommies…no issues around their “gayness” at all, really. Just a portrait of an American family in a time of crisis. Just because a film portrays a lesbian enjoying herself some cock (which I don’t know if you’ve experienced in real life, but I sure have), doesn’t mean the film is saying ALL lesbians are waiting for a man. And, in fact, THIS lesbian wasn’t waiting for a man – she’s decidedly equivocal about her relationship with him, and it’s HIM that really desires her. All she wants is her girlfriend who alternately drives her nuts and makes her gloriously happy, like girlfriends are wont to do. I think it’s great that one of the truest portraits of a family I’ve seen on film was of a gay family. But then, I’ve actually seen the film, so what do I know?
I second that, Courtenay, regarding that it may be worthwhile for Lamp to actually SEE the movie before gettin’ all vitriolic about it. I, as a non-lesbian woman, saw it this evening and thought it was a great film, regardless of my sexual orientation. Because what this film’s about it human and family relations, and the complexity of those things, in the face of the quirks and turns that life throws at us, regardless of what your orientation is. The connection between the (lesbian) married couple was deep and palpable as portrayed by Benning and Moore, and the well-intentioned but no history to anchor him (and therefore doomed) “sperm donor” was well conveyed by Ruffalo. This was one of the most authentic pieces of filmmaking I’ve seen in a long, long time. Quit yer crying, Lamp, and go see it. I think you’ll like it more than you expect to.
I just saw The Kids are All Right and really liked it. However, I didn’t find the comparison to the Mother and Child movie relevant. Admittedly, I HAVEN’T seen the latter (or heard of it until this review), but the children in TKAAR were raised by their birthmoms. TKAAR doesn’t address the issue of what happens when the mother-child bond is severed and unrealized.
There is too much naivete about the supposed harmlessness of separating children from their birthparents, particularly removing an infant from their birthmother. There needs to be more awareness and discussion around the research, which has shown that adoption is generally traumatizing to both the birthmother and child, not to mention the fact that the adoption industry (particularly with transracial adoption) has historically and shamelessly exploited uninformed and disenfranchised mothers for the sake of profit, where supply has generally lagged behind demand (particularly for white babies).
TKAAR is about a sperm donor and two lesbian mothers. Surrendering a child you carried for nine months is different. Never having a chance to bond with your birthmother is different. These Kids are white and have not been removed from their indigenous communities. Moreover, this movie is not even about adoption. Too many people are quick to comment about the relative non-effects of the adoption experience when they haven’t read the literature and/or are not a birthmother or adoptee themselves. The adoption system in the US needs to be reformed so that agencies aren’t incentivized to remove more children from their homes than necessary, and people need to stop assuming adoptees emerge unscathed psychologically simply because the one or two they personally know appear to be functional. The truth is much more complex.