The Kids Are Alright

(Mild Spoilers abound)

Imagine you're watching a movie where a married couple can't have a child and must turn to a sperm donor. The kids – now 18 and 15 – are curious about the man that leant his sperm, so they call the fertility clinic and inquire about this person. They meet and are intrigued by this man, inviting him over to meet their parents. Their mom becomes intrigued, too. Add to that the fact that she has been feeling neglected by her partner and sees this man – the man who she sees so much of her son in – as perhaps something more than merely a sperm donor. They decide to hang out a few times; her being a landscape architect starts to work on his yard, and he, an organic farmer/restaurant owner begins to fall in love with her. Ho hum, right? This is the template for what sounds like nothing more than your basic relationship drama with some moments of humor sprinkled in. However, in The Kids Are Alright director Lisa Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon and High Art) and screenwriter Stuart Blumberg take this premise and refrain from the pitfalls of sitcom writing and direction. Here is a film that had every opportunity to be grating, too cute for its own good, and wholly forgettable; but instead, Cholodenko and company create an inviting film that is warm and humane; a wonderfully honest and astutely observed family drama that doesn't go for big moments of drama and conflict, but simply observes the characters and their interactions with each other, and allows the audience to simply observe, too, wishing that we were at the table with them.




I have not spoiled anything about the film (even though I have noticed that other film reviewers have given a spoiler warning about the film) in revealing that there is a tryst between the mother and the father of her children; nor does it really matter that the woman, Jules (Julianne Moore), is married to another woman, Nic (Annette Bening). The primary dilemma of The Kids Are Alright is not whether or not Jules will "turn" straight (no, that is a dilemma for a much more idiotic movie) and confess her undying love for the father of her children. That man's name is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), and it is not important, either, that we think of him as a home wrecker. These are frivolous things that have no place in this screenplay. This is not a film about surprise twists or revelations; this is not a film about secrets trysts and sitcom conventions; no, here is a film that has all of these elements but executes them in a way that is smart and clever. In summary: We care not that Jules and Nic are lesbians – it's not the point – the point is, and it's stated rather brilliantly through the editing and the framing (the things that are not said), that relationships are hard, especially when you've been at them for a while.

Movies this warm and this benign (and I mean that in a positive way -- this isn't a film designed to be "edgy" or subversive about its take on unconventional families) are rare; I can only think of something like Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count On Me, a film with a tone akin to what we have here. It's a film that is honest, and that honesty makes you smile and nod you head in agreement because it's as if the filmmakers have been flies on the wall of your life and plucked out true and real everyday happenings. In my brief summary above the plot of the film (although really this is a movie without plot) essentially revolves around the conflict of Nic and Jules and how they're starting to grow apart and how they deal with that while their kids, Laser (Josh Hutcherson) and Joni (Mia Wasikowska) are stretching their legs a little bit more and testing the waters of teenage independence. They're pushed further in their toe-testing by Paul who has this scruffy charm about him (in a way that only Mark Ruffalo can emanate) as he tends to his organic garden, fresh-market restaurant, and rides his motorcycle all over town. He's a pretty cool guy with his pseudo-hipster philosophies and free spirit -- it's as if Ruffalo's immature, nomadic character Terry from You Can Count On Me got off that bus and landed in California. Paul is not a bad guy, but he ruffles the feathers of this seemingly happy and cohesive family unit enough for them to re-evaluate their own lives.

Those lives seem cookie-cutter on paper, but they're executed with such honesty, astuteness, and charm throughout the film. Yes, Jules and Nic are lesbians, but the film doesn't seek to define them as just that; they're family isn't this wacky, unconventional family unit that drinks wine and dances around to "We Are Family". And thank God Cholodanko and her crew didn't turn this into another Sundance-lite fair a la Sunshine Cleaning or Little Miss Sunshine. This film doesn't play for cute and call it good; it doesn't play for alternative and think that is enough; and the filmmakers (Cholodanko being a lesbian herself) certainly don't use the film as a platform of any kind. And why should they? What would be the point? I don't see it the way some film critics do that The Kids Are Alright is designed to make the masses feel more comfortable about Pop 8. That's a lousy way to look at a film that isn't trying to be anything more than a well-observed family dramedy.

So enough about all of that and back to what makes this film so damn good: the performances and the editing. I'll start with the performances, all of which will certainly garner plenty of Oscar nominations when the time comes. Hutcherson and Wasikowska are excellent as the confused kids who try to navigate their way through the typical murky waters of adolescence. Joni thinks she knows what she wants, but as we come to find out (thanks to the interjection of Paul's "philosophies") we see that she is really just doing what Nic wants. Laser is more confused, and Hutcherson plays that confusion perfectly.  We have to infer a lot about Laser since a lot of what he's feeling is non-verbal, and Cholodenko and her crew aren't interested in explaining away emotions with needless exposition, and Hutcherson does a great job with the non-verbal acting without looking like he's mugging for the camera. There's a great scene where he goes toe-to-toe with Ruffalo where they have a discussion about team sports, and the young actor hold his own in the scene (even if it is totally Ruffalo's scene) with his hilarious reaction shots. What I like about their characters is that they act like teenagers; they stay in the periphery and in the background a lot, saying about as much as you would expect a 15 and 18 year old to say. The real stars here, though, are the adults. Bening is Bening and continues to remind everyone who sees her films that she is one of the ten best actresses working today. Julianne Moore is always fantastic, and here she is perfect as the neglected Jules, a woman who isn't sure what her path in life looks like and is in desperate need for her life to be shaken up. This is what attracts her most to Paul; not that he's a man and that she's getting something from him that she's not getting from Nic (although in one of their fights, this is what Nic accuses Jules of, and her response is poingant and heartbreaking and brilliantly delivered by Moore), but that he's a dreamer, too, and that he listens to her and encourages her. It doesn't even matter that Paul's encouragement may be motivated by sex, and it may not even matter that Paul's encouragement his basically the same stuff he's been spouting since his Philosophy 101 days before he dropped out of college (his first conversation with Nic and Jules about high education is one of the film's highlights).It's simply that his attitude, his presence and aura are so much different than Nic's that she can't help but want to gravitate towards that. It's all explained, in a sense, near the end in a brief monlogue delivered by Moore that is absolutley heartbeaking. It's a powerful moment, and I was surpirsed that the cynic inside me was compleleyt melted dueing that moment, and I have to give all the credit to the way Moore delivers that speech (not to mention Bening's reaction).

And then there's Ruffalo, one of the best actirs working in film today gives us his best performance. I remember being intrigued by him in films like the aforementioned You Can Count Me and smaller films like In the Cut and XX/XY. He's always been one of the most interesting actors worling, and here he creates a character that is a type of guy many of us probably know. Here in the Northwest we're full of Paul's, and Ruffalo is so perfect as prtraying him as the kind of guy that, yeah, if you were to meet him at a party you would think he was the coolest guy in the room; but, the more and more you hang out with him and converse with him you see what a phony he is. However, Paul isn't meant to be taken that simply, either. You get a sense that he really does want to be a part of these kids' life, and that he really is ready to re-evaluate his life and find someone to settle down with; the problem is that he just doesn't want to do any of the legwork. He doesn't want to really work for it, and again, like the type of guys that Paul is based on, he wants to simply fall into these situations and make them work without any regard for the ripple effect it will cause. Nic's final line to Paul is a perfect one: he's an interloper and she tells him -- rather brusquely -- to go make his own family.

The other element that makes this film so great is the editing. As the great Jim Emerson recently pointed out on his Scanners blog (he wonderfully titled his post: "Taut Editing, Stunning Effects"), usually we associate great editing with action or sci-fi films; films that are meant to be layered and deep. But here is a film that understands not just the basics of editing (I can't remember the last time a comedy used smash cuts so brilliantly), but how to frame a scene so that we understand where the characters are logistically in relation to one another (duh, that's what framing is for) and how their place in the frame can be used to tell a subtle joke. The film is paced well -- cut perfectly so that every joke feels natural and like the right type of punctuation, rather than feeling tired and superfluous -- and there are nuances that occur in the periphery that punctuate the jokes, too. There's a great scene near the beginning where Paul meets the entire family for the first time. At the dinner table Nic grills Paul (he even calls her "the griller of the family" before moving onto a different conversation) about his philosophies and life decisions. When Paul begins to spew his nonsense about doing "whatever works" for the individual, the shot is framed so that we can clearly see Joni, who is heading off the college and clearly sees Paul as an out for doing something she is scared of, and we see Jules and Nic, the former simply smiling (she is also a free spirit) and the latter subtly pouring another glass of wine. What's great about this moment is that prior to them all sitting down at the table together, Jules and Nic have a minor verbal quarrel over Nic's tendency to drink too much at social gatherings and Jules' tendency to micromanage. It's a great bit of foreshadowing that comically justifies Nic's rather serious tendency (which is a motif throughout that always pops up during moments where she seems to be alienating Jules). It's so refreshing to not just see a comedy that understands these basic film techniques, but to see any film have a grasp of filmmaking 101.

The Kids Are Alright is one of those small films that will undoubtedly get misconstrued for one of those "clever, smart, and sexy" (can't you just see that quote in the newspaper ads) satire on suburban family life; but don't let the poster art (which is like a bad mixture of Sunshine Cleaning and Sideways) fool you, here is a film with a lot of heart, a lot of humanity, and a lot of truth about how it tells its story. It made me smile from beginning to end; it made me feel happy and good; I'm sure there were things wrong with the film, but I just didn't care because all I wanted to do once the film was over was sit down with some friends have a delicious steak dinner. It's one of the best films of the year.