The Kids Are All Right
(Blu-ray, 2010)
Condition is Brand New - Factory Sealed.
If the relationships that anchor Lisa Cholodenko's warmly funny films
appear unconventional, their problems--their pleasures--remain
universal. In The Kids Are All Right (no relation to the Who documentary), she takes on a suburban Los Angeles family with two teens, Joni (Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska) and the unfortunately named Laser (Josh Hutcherson, The Bridge to Terabithia),
and two mothers, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (an atypically relaxed
Julianne Moore), who conceived via artificial insemination. Now that
she's heading off to college, Laser urges 18-year-old Joni to seek out
their birth father, who lives in the area (her name comes from
folksinger Mitchell). Though she hits it off with Paul (Mark Ruffalo,
effortlessly charming), a motorcycle-riding restaurant owner, Laser has
his doubts (troublingly, the 15-year-old's best friend uses "faggot" as
an all-purpose epithet). After they introduce Paul to their parents,
allegiances start to shift. While Nic, a doctor, serves as breadwinner
(and disciplinarian), Jules, a homemaker-turned-landscape artist,
provides the nurturing. Paul, on the other hand, lives free from
attachments, inciting both curiosity and suspicion. Furthermore, Jules
finds him strangely irresistible, which only expands the fissures in her
loving, yet unstable union. As with Laurel Canyon, Cholodenko doesn't just create fully rounded characters, but entire communities. In the end, Kids
isn't about children vs. adults as much as the family unit vs. the
singular outsider. Though the story concludes on a relatively happy
note, it's clear where her allegiances lie.
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