Marriage is Tough in “The Kids Are All Right”

As many great movies and sitcoms have taught us, marriage is a struggle.  After you spend a significant amount of time with a person, you begin to establish patterns of behavior and become complacent with your lifestyle.  Your partner’s foibles and personality quirks start to wear on you, making you quick to anger.  Sometimes that frustration boils to the top while other times it just simmers.  Spouses that bottle their animosity though, tend to experience the worst damage to their relationships, when they finally confront those feelings by resorting to infidelity.

Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko’s drama “The Kids Are All Right,” may be about an alternative family, but it strives to communicate the message that marriage is still tough when it involves a gay couple.  In this goal, Cholodenko is very successful, painting a convincing portrait of gay marriage.  The lesbian relationship of her two main characters Nic (Annette Benning) and Jules (Julianne Moore) suffers from the same pitfalls and temptations as heterosexual ones that we traditionally see in movies.

At the outset of the film, Nic and Jules are like your average married couple; their moments of intimacy are fleeting at best and they are frequently at odds.  The two continually clash on how to raise their children.  Nic prefers a more authoritarian approach, while Jules takes a more laid back attitude.  Neither is quite prepared however, for the quandary their children present them with.

Unbeknownst to Nic and Jules, their children Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) secretly begin a quest to find their biological father.   Since they have only known life with two mothers, their natural curiosity leads them to contact the fertility company their mothers used to find a sperm donor.  They find the donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), who is a single restaurant owner, and latch onto him immediately.

Nic and Jules are disturbed by the interest their children take in this stranger and drama ensues as they try to determine what place Paul has, if any in their lives.  Things become further complicated by the inappropriate attraction that develops between Paul and Jules as they get to know one another.  The following events challenge the strength of the family and  place Nic and Jules’ marriage in jeopardy.

Cholodenko’s direction uses close-up shots to amplify emotional reactions of her characters during difficult times.  These moments are further captivating due to the realistic acting of Benning and Moore.  The instances are sporadic though, and where the film falters is that the story fails to establish a rhythm, so it’s hard to get hooked.  In addition, “The Kids Are All Right” seems to build toward some sort of important lesson for the characters that it never reaches.  Cholodenko takes time to show us the trip up to college that the family makes with Joni to help her get settled, but there’s no grand epiphany for the daughter or her mothers, which is disappointing.

My grade: C+