The Kids Are All Right is one of the most compelling cinematic depictions of family life to come along for some time. It is the kind of film whose perceptiveness will be overlooked by those who require serious cinema to affect a tone of self importance. For everyone else, the film is a light, soaring joy, brimming with casual brilliance and unavoidable wisdom.
Nic (Julianne Moore, A Single Man) and Jules (Annette Bening, American Beauty), are a long-term couple who live in the suburb with their two children, Joni (Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant). Joni is about to leave home to begin college and is slowly becoming impatient with her “moms’s” babying.
The centre of the film is Nic and Jules who are in love but carry the baggage of a long term relationship that has begun to wear at the corners. When Joni and Laser contact their sperm donor dad Paul (Mark Ruffalo, Shutter Island), the fragile family bonds begin to disintegrate.
Ruffalo is terrific at conveying a charming, perennially single, forty-something hipster who discovers a latent desire for family. However, it is testimony to the rest of the fantastic cast and script by director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) and Stuart Blumberg (Keeping the Faith) that all the characters and relationships feel tangibly real.
Cholodenko has demonstrated talent in previous films but truly finds her voice here. This might have something to do with the fact that she is writing from her own experiences of raising a child with her partner. There is brilliant harmony and balance in the way the film manages to focus on the smaller stories of each of its protagonists without losing sight of the central relationship of Nic and Jules. Australian actress Wasikowska (fast becoming one of our most valuable exports) has a lovely moment at the end of the film where she realizes the bitter-sweet nature of her break from the family.
But what is most impressive is the film’s refusal to find easy solutions to the scenarios presented. Cholodenko respects each of her characters too much to manicure their unruly and messy complexities.
The Kids Are All Right is released in Australia on 2nd September
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Cast: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson
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