The Kids Are All Right: A Delightful Breeze of a Film



Overall Rating = 4.5 Stars of 5 Stars



The Kids Are All Right blows over you like a breeze, not the playful summer breeze that wafts through the trees and whisks across your face, but the stiff breezes of fall that, though not chilling, knocks your bonnet around and chases the autumn leaves along the ground. The Kids Are All Right is a movie that refreshes the spirit, but also carries some hard life lessons.

The central figures of this story are a lesbian couple named Nic and Jules who are rearing two children, now adolescents, fathered by an anonymous sperm donor. Nic (Annette Bening), a doctor, and the parent with a type-A personality who insists the family members follow a rigid set of social protocols, is the older anchor of the family. Jules (Julianne Moore), a free spirit still searching for her professional calling, is the parent with a live-and-let-live personality.

The adolescents are the typical suburban teenagers, going through the typical changes children their age experience. Joni (Mia Wasikowska) is a 17-year old girl spending her last summer at home before traveling off to college in the fall. She tries to balance the familial expectations of her sheltered life against her growing desire to assert her independence. Her 15-year old brother, Laser (Josh Hutcherson), surrounded in a household of females, is desperately seeking a male role model to gain a better sense of himself.

Perhaps, it is out of Laser’s need to find identity that the story takes a turn that heats up the plot. Laser and her sister find and meet their anonymous sperm donor father Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Paul, a man who is content living the life of a bachelor, becomes intrigued by the notions of family and fatherhood after meeting his biological children. When the children later officially introduce “sperm donor dad” to their parents Nic and Jules, new familial bonds are formed, while others unravel. At the height of this dramatic comedy, a crisis causes the family dynamics to collapse.

Bening and Moore bring smarts and dignity to their role as new age, non-traditional parents trying to foster a normal and healthy family life. Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson are adorable (and sometimes frustrating) as teenagers gaining an understanding of the bittersweet nature of family relationships. Ruffalo brings affability to a well-intentioned character struggling to understand the responsibility of family.

Director Lisa Cholendenko presents the themes of The Kids Are All Right with warmth and humor. The movie depicts love in its many forms, family in its changing configurations, and the resilience of human beings, especially children, who must confront the challenges of love and family. And perhaps even the lessons of forgiveness and reconciliation. Cholendenko gives us a delightful family portrait which should win over hearts. The Kids Are All Right warmed my heart for 4.5 Stars out of 5 Stars.