Film Review: Political Advocacy Done Right with 'The Kids Are All Right'

The Kids Are All Right, an indy film starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, examines the difficulties faced by two lesbians trying to raise children when a man enters the mix. But the man, played by Mark Ruffalo, is not just any man; he’s the donor whose sperm helped create the two ‘kids’ of the title.

You see, the son, Laser, wants to find out who the father is, but can’t because he’s only 15. So, he pleads with his 18-year old sister, Joni (named after Joni Mitchell; more on that later), to help him out. She resists at first, but eventually relents. Without spoiling anything, I’ll only say that the remainder of the movie involves all the twists and turns that any good movie uses to build the tension which eventually leads to a climax that leaves the audience breathless and the characters stocked up with new insights that ensure they will live richer and more honest lives. Whew! In other words, your basic, garden variety Hollywood relationship movie; well written, acted, and, photographed.

But, as Wilson Pickett once said: “Don’t let the green grass fool ya!” This is a smartly made and subtle contribution to the debate raging throughout the country that concerns gay marriage, civil unions, and gay rights in general. The director, Lisa Cholodenko, is no rookie when making movies about same-sex relationships, and it shows in Kids. Given the chance at making a film with Hollywood heavies like Moore and Bening, most directors would wield a two-by-four instead of Cholodenko’s scalpel. First and foremost, she shows when most would merely tell.

Consider the details of the film, which conservatives could rightly consider red herrings. She sets the film, not in San Francisco, but in a middle class neighborhood of Los Angeles. Moore plays the follow-your-heart, let-it-go, everything-happens-for-a-reason “housewife” who has stayed at home to raise the children, while Bening brings home the bacon as an overworked, underappreciated obstetrician. But the good doctor spouts just enough cute psychobabble to remind us that she’s had her share of Southern California therapy sessions, which no doubt has led to the longevity of their plainly normal relationship (Think Tea Leoni in Spanglish). “It doesn’t work without work”, they emote. Isn’t that what we all tell our kids?

To make the film’s otherwise controversial central theme as palatable as possible, Cholodenko takes a lesson from Stanley Kramer, the legendary director who made Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 film that examined the then-equally as controversial topic of interracial marriage. But Kramer, no slouch himself at understatement, used popular actors (Tracy and Hepburn) to help the medicine go down, and made Sidney Poiter’s black suitor a soft spoken, articulate medical doctor who had overcome a difficult childhood start. In Kids, Ruffalo’s father/donor is a college dropout who runs an organic restaurant, (aww…) listens to Joni Mitchell (bam!), and rides a carbon-friendly motorcycle (oh, yeah, baby). I mean, times have clearly changed, but who’s not going to fall for that set up?

So there you are, a center-right, middle class Joe struggling with mortgages, dirty dishes, divisions of labor, and kids dealing with minor change-of-life stuff, plunked down right in the middle of an Ozzie and Harriet scenario that looks just like your house. Except for one thing: Ozzie has a different chromosomal arrangement, and he’s missing some significant danglage (see what I did there?). And besides that, drum roll, please: The kids are all right! And, even better, if you buy into the director’s understated point of view, so are you! As well as your neighborhood, America, and everything else. You see (so the movie implies), same-sex parenting has no different affect on child development than heterosexual couplings. So let’s change those antiquated laws disallowing such things, and move on to a different and better future. It’s easy, see?

At least that’s what the gay-lesbian community thinks. And you can too, if you want. But, before you throw down your ten bucks for a ticket and five hundred dollars for your coke and popcorn, you need to know that you will be under the spell of a very artful director whose point of view is probably different than yours, but hidden so well that you might not know you’re being drawn into it. Like lots of other good movies, as a matter of fact.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…