Saturday, January 22, 2011

the kids are all right

Last night, Rach and I watched The Kids Are All Right. It was really quite good. The beauty of this movie lies in the perfectly honest moments that happen between people going through a pretty unique situation. The parents in the film, Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore), are two lesbians who were both artificially inseminated in order to conceive. Their children, Laser and Jules (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson), are independent in their own ways, and very much like each of their birth mothers. The movies begins as Laser, the younger sibling, asks Jules to get in contact with the sperm donor "Moms" used (yeah, they both used the same guy). Despite this very "sitcommy" setup, the movies strengths are not the plot devices or its unorthodox family. The movies succeeds because of solid, down to earth writing, and genuine, home run performances from all five of the leads. The genius of the film lies in its ability to be in turns humorous and moving, sometimes simultaneously. The laughs are subtle, yet piercing, and serve to counterbalance the aching sadness of life, of growing up, of struggling to stay in love. I absolutely recommend this movie to anyone grown up enough to not recoil at the thought of gay parents. The truth is, these kids are alright.

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