Lesbianism is hardly the point.By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"Marriage is hard." Jules in The Kids are All Right
Lesbians don't dominate in the love that owns The Kids are All Right. By that I mean if you want hard-core lesbian love, then go to the back of your video store because this film is about the challenges of marriage and family life. It's not Medea; rather it's the best family romady I've seen since Little Miss Sunshine, and not even as funny.
Not funny by comparison because at the heart of the film's major conceit about a lesbian couple's family tensions lies universal truths about family and love. Jules (Julienne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening in another fine performance this year after Mother and Child) had a teenage girl and boy using the same sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo).
When the daughter, Joni (Mia Wosakowska) and son Laser (Josh Hutcherson) invite Paul to the family, chaos results as Nic becomes uncomfortable with the growing affection between Paul and Jules and the children confront a love free-spirit in their post-hippie donor-dad.
The beauty of the film is in the overlapping effects of affection among all the characters as daughter grows fond of dad, son warily accepts him, and Jules brings him into the bedroom. None of this intertwining is smooth, as it isn't in our lives either, and writer director Lisa Cholodenko deftly alternates between the comic accessories of the lesbian motherhood and the real challenges of parents with teens in revolt and the onslaught of hetero affection.
Without the lesbian element, The Kids are All Right is a kitchen-sink realistic turn on the vicissitudes of marriage and family. The celebration of the complexities is wonderful to behold, a wakeup call to tea partiers that love transcends gender, making opposition to gay marriage as outdated as anti civil rights.
While the dialogue and sentiments are the most realistic you will see and hear his summer, the grand theme prevails as if in the greatest Russian novels: If we open our hearts to love, regardless of gender, the kids will be all right.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com