The Kids are All Right

Before we officially begin, I have a bone to pick with the plot: am I the only one who felt Mark Rufallo’s character (I think it’s Paul, so we’ll just go with that) got a raw deal?  I don’t think when he was jerking off into a cup at Dr. Schweinberg’s sperm donor clinic he ever had any desire to see the possible product of what he was projecting twenty years later.  But these kids had legitimate questions about where they came from and he tried to make it work.  He certainly fucked up and it was probably most likely best for all parties involved that he stay away from them, but he didn’t need to be cast aside so easily.  He was a major force in the story and his issues with his “children” were unresolved.  I wanted more for him, even if he didn’t deserve it.

And here we begin with a question: what was this story about?    Was this to be a film about a man thrown haphazardly into the modern world of gay couples and the unique complications that come with it?  The movie isn’t of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner quality, but a comparison can be made.  Times change and issues must be modernized not only in their content, but also in the manner with which they are dealt.  As good as Spencer Tracy was, he comes off now as unrelatable.  As time has gone on and gays, blacks and all other strange creatures of the Earth are mixed in the big boiling pot of the American Experience, forced to live similar lives in similar settings, dealing with the same issues, it would be unrealistic for Paul to react to his unique situation with the same shock and ignorance as Tracy did his.  Paul is reticent, off guard and obviously in over his head.  One gets the feeling if he were ever honest with himself, he wouldn’t approve of homosexuality, but his reactions are indicative of the modern era, a reticent acceptance and willingness to roll with the punches.

But that is not what this film is about.  It is an example of a new modern family drama we will be watching for years to come.  As homosexuality becomes more accepted and more gay couples adopt children, we can expect to see films that deal with unique situations like this.  It’s nothing wholly new, but more of a progression in main stream acceptance of non-traditional families that mirrors a progression of our society in general.  But looking just a little closer at the film, you can see the same themes pop up that one would see in most dramatic films about families: adultery, parental alienation from children, adolescent peer pressure, the pressure of a career on a marriage, etc…

Within the scope of this unique family, Julianne Moore (Jules) and Annette Benning (Nic)’s characters play very traditional roles.  Nic is a doctor who is married to her job and constantly belittles whatever job or scheme masking as a career Jules is working on at the moment.  She takes Jules for granted and when Jules gets fed up with Nic’s condescending remarks, she accepts an offer to landscape Paul’s back yard more out of spite than an actual desire to work.  The scenes, while slightly off kilter, lend themselves to the same kind of humorous situations that all family dramedies have.  There’s an awkward discussion about sex where Nic and Jules have to explain to their son why they like gay male porn.  When Paul spends an afternoon with the son and his horrible friend, he gives a very awkward lecture to his “son” about how this guy is a bad influence.  He’s basically an estranged father trying to establish some paternal authority, but you can’t get over the fact that he’s only father by artificial insemination.  Jules and Paul start an affair and the sex scenes are awkward and more comical than erotic.  A lot of the scenes in the film end up feeling awfully familiar, even if they are within an unusual context.  But it’s okay.

What I probably liked most about this movie was its ability to seamlessly go beyond the I’m alright with the Gays message.  You don’t watch this film to pat yourself on the back for being okay with homosexuality, this movie takes it for granted with neither an apology nor a pat on the back.

That’s why I don’t mind the predictability of this film.  It is almost unpredictable in its ordinariness.  My original bone to pick is actually indicative of this.  Paul represented in the film a consciousness of the unique situation we were in.  The odd man out looking in, by casting him aside so casually the director (Lisa Cholodenko) is saying we needn’t concern ourselves with the outside world and how this situation might look to an outsider.  The story is self-contained and those who matter are those who are in the middle, living the story.  The situation is not unique to them.  The kids are so great because there isn’t one scene where we see them dealing with their parents’ homosexuality.  They don’t get picked on, even the son’s jerkoff friend takes this situation as a given.  Issues and conflicts are long since dealt with.

So now we get to the Why This Isn’t Going to Beat “The Social Network” part.  I know I just spent three paragraphs praising this film for being a standard family drama and you will probably be pissed that I fault it for the same reason when it comes to the big prize.  While I like that it’s a traditional family comedy, I must remind you again that we are not looking for solid or admirable films.  We are looking for the exceptional, the cream of the crop.  The Kids are All Right probably wouldn’t have been nominated two years ago.  It’s a good film and I give it an enthusiastic go-ahead, but it certainly had its faults; mainly the ending.  The film falls apart after Jules and Paul’s affair is exposed.  Dialogue goes downhill, the story fades along with the writing and by the end you’re ready for it to end.  I think the acting could have been better as well.

Well we have less than two weeks and four films.  I’m going to need to freebase some crack to get through the next two weeks.  Thankfully I learn how to do that in our next film.

Alouishis.