Review: The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Date of Release: July 30, 2010
Summary: A brother and sister raised by a same-sex couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) find their sperm donor aka father (Mark Ruffallo) and are shocked when he begins a steaming affair with one of their mothers.

AKI: You know every independent film you’ve ever seen that was a dramedy. Yeah…So I’m not saying don’t go see it, but don’t rush to see it cause you’ve already seen it. With that said, it’s not a horrible movie. In fact, it’s quite good. It’s funny…gay even (get it? hehe). It takes a while to get into the characters and their lives, but you do begin to get into them. The film is just not groundbreaking or fresh or anything to write home about in the way you hope it will be. Plus, the ending is not completely satisfying, especially with Mark Ruffalo’s character. It also seems that the screenwriter randomly chose to focus on the daughter (played by Mia Wasikowska) even though she is the least interesting character in the whole film. To prove this, she is virtually absent from the entire middle of the movie because, you know, she sucks. * * 1/2

RYAN: One thing I learned after seeing The Kids Are All Right is that I need to temper my expectations about a film. When I heard that Focus Features was coming out with a film starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening playing a same-sex couple, I was off-the-wall excited. Then I saw it and well, it was really good, just not amazing, as I had expected. I think most of that had to do with me finding not a lot of interest in the lives of the adult characters as deftly as they were handled by the aforementioned actresses and Mark Ruffalo. In fact, I gravitated more towards the kids played by Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson and the movie seemed to lag for me when the kids weren't on screen. Maybe if they were as developed as the parents, I'd have liked the movie more. So in the end, this movie was just all right, pun intended. Nothing to rave about certainly, but still a film worthy of your time if you can spare it. * * * 1/2