Review: The Kids Are All Right
Last Wednesday evening, I attended a packed screening of The Kids Are All Right at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar; the theater was so full that even though I was there early my friend and I had to sit in folding chairs. I was hungry, but felt too unsettled to order anything (and since I wasn't near a table, I couldn't imagine how I would eat and take notes at the same time). Then the movie started, and I forgot my own problems and got caught up in the story of the family in the film.
Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a married Californian couple with two teenage kids: recent high school graduate Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson). The kids love their moms, but since Joni is 18, Laser asks her to find out about their sperm donor. Thus, Mark Ruffalo enters the picture as Paul, a organic/local restauranteur (his place is called WYSIWYG, get it?) in his early forties and their biological father.
Paul becomes involved with both the kids and their moms in varying ways. Jules and Joni bloom under his attentions, and even Laser takes his advice (finally) regarding his doofus friend Clay (Eddie Hassell), the kind of guy who would want to pee on a dog's head. Yes, this film goes there! Well, almost.
Nic remains wary of Paul, but there is a very sweet dinner scene where her character starts singing Joni Mitchell's "All I Want" and Paul joins in. This moment reminded me of other movies that attempt to use Mitchell's music for an emotional punch but end up ringing false (Love Actually, I'm looking at you). When Nic sings the lyrics off-pitch, the moment seems anything but false. She puts herself all out there, emotionally naked -- and that's far from the only nakedness in the film -- at the supper table.
The whole film is like that -- emotionally honest without being brutal, and witty without being crass or cruel. The writing and acting in The Kids Are All Right are both natural and fluid; even the makeup is minimal and lacking artifice. Bening and Moore bring multiple dimensions to their characters: Bening as semi-alcoholic, controlling doctor Nic and Moore as flustered, ignored landscape designer Jules. I was blown away by Julianne Moore's performance especially; I've never really cared for her acting in any of her other films I've seen, but her understated depiction of Jules is just spot-on.
Events occur which throw the family dynamics out of whack, and still no one in Lisa Cholodenko's film is shown as the scapegoat. All the main characters have likeable qualities, which is why it's so easy to become engrossed in their story despite the frustrating mistakes some of the characters make. There is some strangeness to this film: Joni's confused relationship with her guy friend Jai (Kunal Sharma) and Laser's skater-bro pal Clay seem thrown in without much exposition. And if you prefer your endings fixed and concise, the open-ended finish to The Kids Are All Right may leave you frustrated -- but I was quite satisfied with it.
It's rare to see such a "modern" family on the big screen; it's even more rare to see a family depicted with such hope despite possible disarray. If The Kids Are All Right is mentioned in future talk of awards, it is deservedly so.