The Kids Are All Right

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: July 9th, 2010 (limited)
 
Starring: Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson
 
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko

Premise: Two teenaged children conceived by artificial insemination get the notion to seek out their birth father and introduce him into the family life that their two mothers have built for them. Once the donor is found, the household will never be the same, as family ties are defined, re-defined, and then re-re-defined.

[©brad]

I really hope this is an Xixax favorite this year. It's been getting fantastic reviews ever since Sundance.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Am I missing something?

My theater is opening two screens for this (we only have seven screens and it's usually a big deal when a movie debuts with more than one) and we're getting it exclusively, we have banners promoting it (another thing uncommon for my theater).  Hell, we aren't even getting a new movie for a couple of weeks after we get this.

I've seen the trailer many times now and I still do not get it.  Where is all this hype coming from?

[matt35mm]

The Sundance hype and the fact that it's a very marketable film.  It's got likable stars, great reviews so far, and it seems to be a "nice" film.  For indie films, older people are often the target audience, and this is something that older people in socially liberal communities will eat up.  I'm sure Focus Features is thinking of a Little Miss Sunshine type hit, and so they're spending the money to advertise it (with banners and such, and I'm seeing a bunch of TV and internet spots).  So the hype is big and the per-screen-average will be giant, which is why your theater is smart to give two screens to it, and why you've got all them purty banners.

[pete]

the acting was great, but the script kinda wandered on until I didn't know what the film was about anymore.

[©brad]

This was really sweet and funny and surprisingly, pretty conventional. I loved Annette Benning. It was so joyful to see her and Moore pass the baton from one scene to the next. I don't think the script meandered, I only wish they slowed down in parts. It felt very rushed, didn't it? I think fleshing out a few of the subplots, mainly with the kids, would have helped.

Pete what do you think the title means? You know the press keeps pointing out that this is not a political film, that it's refreshing they didn't try and make an explicit point about prop 8 or gay marriage. I'm glad they didn't too, but of course the film is political. I think the title is very telling in that regard no?

[modage]

Oh, I liked this too. 

from ma blog:

There is a perception that an indie film is somehow smarter or more sophisticated than a studio one but I’ve found that movies coming out of Sundance (like this one) have just as much a tendency to lean on familiar tropes as mainstream films do.  And a comedy is difficult to pull off on any budget.  The Kids Are All Right has the sort of synopsis that would normally send me running from the theatre: Nic and Jules had the perfect family, until they met the man who made it all possible.  (Nic and Jules being lesbian parents played by Julianne Moore and Anette Bening, their donor and man who made it all possible is Mark Ruffalo.)

It sounds like a a sitcom premise that could easily be turned into a horrible film.  But filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko makes it work because it feels personal.  The film is smart, funny and the cast is uniformly great, including the kids played by Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson. Ironically these virtues will keep it from being a hit.  Had the film been played more broadly, softened the more dramatic moments for easy resolution it would appeal to a wider audience but who needs them?

[pete]

This was really sweet and funny and surprisingly, pretty conventional. I loved Annette Benning. It was so joyful to see her and Moore pass the baton from one scene to the next. I don't think the script meandered, I only wish they slowed down in parts. It felt very rushed, didn't it? I think fleshing out a few of the subplots, mainly with the kids, would have helped.

Pete what do you think the title means? You know the press keeps pointing out that this is not a political film, that it's refreshing they didn't try and make an explicit point about prop 8 or gay marriage. I'm glad they didn't too, but of course the film is political. I think the title is very telling in that regard no?

I've been asked very recently by two teenaged girls (with a single lesbian mama who they see a few months out of a year) to be their godfather.  I was going to take one of them to see this film, too.  and perhaps it was because of this I identified very strongly with Mark Ruffalo's character and figured the film must have been about him, when he was really only in maybe 1/3rd of the movie or less - he entered late and left early.  And the scenes are evenly split between the kids and the moms, which didn't come together as something like Ice Storm did.  The kids' stories never really played out - the boy's relationship with Ruffalo took place in a few scenes, the girl had somewhat of a closure, but not much more, and towards the second half it was gradually revealed that the movie was more about infidelity or something.  I dunno, it's a movie where the initial conflict seems very well-defined but then just meanders based on a very strong premise.  the individual scenes are good, the acting is good, but I still have no idea what it's trying to say (marriage is hard?) despite the fact that it seems to be saying something.

[SiliasRuby]

Pretty convential and run of the mill story. It was an above average narrative that put me over the edge with its performances. I had to eventually see this because it had my favorite actress in it: Julianne Moore. God, what great performances all around. If a film touches either my heart, my head, or it makes me tingle all over I will buy it. This film touched my heart...

[modage]

Pretty convential and run of the mill story. This film touched my heart...