A Warm and Funny Character-Based Indie
Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo give fine performances in The Kids Are All Right (2010), a critically acclaimed comedy-drama co-written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon, High Art). The film's storyline centers on a marital crisis, but the twist is that the marriage is between two women. That idea is problematic, but Cholodenko and her co-writer, Stuart Blumberg, created interesting characters who are sympathetic, but flawed, and those characters are brilliantly brought to life by the talented cast. This is a movie with big laughs.
The film's premise is so cute it's likely to scare off some potential viewers: Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) are longtime domestic partners, and each woman has had a child via artificial insemination using the same anonymous sperm donor. The kids are now teenagers who locate their biological father and try to bring him into the family.
But what makes The Kids Are All Right work is that the characters are given individuality and humanity. Jules is a ditsy type who, although middle-aged, is still searching for a career and is trying to start up a landscaping business. Nic, an OB-GYN, has always been the family breadwinner, but is too controlling and drinks too much. The biological father (Ruffalo) is a lovable, laidback bachelor, but he's not someone you'd want to have to rely on. Another key character is Nic's daughter (Mia Wasikowska), who has turned 18 and is clashing with Nic. Finally, there's Jules' son (Josh Hutcherson) who, at age 15, is at a critical stage in his young life.
Supplementary Materials
The Kids Are All Right DVD has about 10 minutes of video extras. The four-and-a-half-minute "The Journey to Forming a Family" gives you a chance to hear from filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko and her two female leads. The three-minute "The Making of The Kids Are All Right" features the key members of the movie's cast and crew, and you can hear Mia Wasikowska speak in her normal Australian accent. Finally, in the two-and-a-half-minute "The Writer's Process," Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg tell about how they happened to run into each other at Hollywood's 101 Coffee Shop and decided to collaborate on the film's screenplay.
If you liked the movie, you'll want to listen to Cholodenko's feature-length commentary. She covers pretty much everything you'd want to know from writing the script to casting to the 23-day shoot to post-production. She had to make cuts to get an R rating from the MPAA: they objected to her handling of a scene where a minor watches a porn film. She also discusses shooting the sex scenes in which Mark Ruffalo appears. The budget for The Kids Are All Right was limited, but Cholodenko splurged in getting the rights to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" because Nic's daughter was named for the celebreted singer-songwriter. On the other hand, Cholodenko conserved budget by shooting the college scene at Occidental, the L.A. school whose most famous ex-student is Barack Obama.
Release Date: November 16, 2010
Total Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for Strong Sexual Content, Nudity, Language and Some Teen Drug and Alcohol Use