The Kids Are All Right

**Warning – If you read the review, there are some spoilers in it. It was hard for me to explain my thoughts without giving away some key pieces of the storyline. Please skip the review if you do not wish to know bits and pieces from the movie.

Title: The Kids Are All Right
Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon, Six Feet Under)
Major Players: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo

Synopsis: A brother and sister who were born from artificial insemination search for their birth father and bring him into their lives. The movie focuses on how they build a relationship with him and how he fits in with their two mothers.

I think you should: Sleep instead – I rented this movie from Netflix after hearing so much buzz about the movie from the Golden Globe awards, however I found myself fast forwarding though parts of it and checked how much time was left in the movie every five minutes.

Review: The Kids might be "All Right," but I'm beyond bored. When I heard the storyline of this movie, I thought the movie might be interesting since it was described as a comedy where two children search for their father because the children’s two mothers used the same donor to conceive both children. Sadly, this movie left me bored and I don’t even think I laughed once during the movie.

The storyline was slow and seemed a bit predictable to me. You know, the two kids find their donor father and figure out how to fit him into their life. There wasn’t much of a struggle to find their donor father, they just called up the donor bank and basically that was it. The kids didn’t tell the mothers that they were meeting him and, when the mothers found out, they weren’t happy. Eventually they meet him and he sort of becomes part of their lives. Eventually a very bad thing happens that involves Paul (Ruffalo), the donor father, and it causes a fight between Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore), the two mothers of the children. Then the final portions of the movie deal with if should they let Paul continue being a part of the family and if the two women will stay together. In the end, I didn’t really care. I just wanted the movie to end so I could return the movie to Netflix and get something I thought was more entertaining.

As time has gone on, I have sadly come to expect some sort of nudity/sex scene in popular movies. However, I also didn’t enjoy all of the sex scenes throughout this movie. Just too much for me and they were a bit uncomfortable to me as well. In my opinion, I don’t need to see half of the things they show in movies these days and this movie was not short of these scenes that made me uncomfortable and I fast forwarded a lot of times in these moments.

I also found that I didn’t really care what happened to most of the characters. This isn’t to say that the acting is badly done in the movie, but I didn’t feel like the characters were very deep and I didn’t feel connected to them. In fact, there were times that I hated all of the characters. This movie had a great cast, but I felt that the writing didn’t give these actors much of a range to work with and so we didn’t get to see the actor’s capability.

Notable Performances: The acting in this wasn’t my favorite, however, again, I don’t believe that this is necessarily the fault of the actors themselves. I do feel that Annette Bening, who played one of the mothers, Nic, had to play the more dominant woman in the relationship. She succeeded in making me believe that she was overbearing and powerful in the relationship. This also made me grow to not like the character and I think that was part of the point. Make the audience not care too much for Nic and so we felt a bit sorry for Jules. If this was the point the director/writers wanted, then Bening did a great job making this happen. It was a bit difficult to feel badly for Nic when the movie called for it. I felt like saying “well, you kind of did this to yourself in the way you acted.”

Memorable Lines:
Jules: “Marriage is hard...So, sometimes, you know, you're together for so long, that you just... You stop seeing the other person. You just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails and act grubby and make stupid choices...”

Thing I liked the most: Not much that I liked about the move except when it ended.
Thing I liked the least: The sex scenes.
Where I saw the movie: In my room
Who I saw it with: Just by myself
Snacks I enjoyed during the movie: Some tortilla chips and Godiva chocolate
What I was wearing: Ultra Comfy - Pajamas