THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Before delving into this movie, I just have to say that neither one of them is my favorite actress but every time I find myself doubting Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, they always remind me just how good they are.

This movie tells a very interesting story of a middle-aged lesbian couple with two teenaged children born with the help of a sperm donor. As their 18 year old daughter Joni is on the verge of going off to college, her 15 year old brother Laser (not kidding, that’s his name) asks her to contact the sperm bank for information about their biological father.

What follows is a well woven tale about an unconventional family coming to grips with choices made in the past and present and coming through a difficult time of everyone’s life with a positive outlook on life. Yes, indeed, you may not think so while watching the movie but in the end, it certainly lives up to its title.

I hate doing it but I have to just in case someone wants to yell at me for giving something away…

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!

RATING

R for strong sexual content, nudity, language, and some teen drug and alcohol use.

First of all, I have to say that it very much intrigues me that the word “teen” is in that sentence. I understand that we don’t want the youth of America to see teens in movies doing drugs and drinking and driving and to think it’s all ok but still, I object to the fact that it appears that when adults do drugs and drink (and sometimes drive) on screen, it’s somehow not as bad as when kids do it.

If you want to send a message, MPAA, send it.

I was watching Back to the Future recently and there is a classic scene where Biff totals George McFly’s car, saying that he had no idea that the car had a “blind spot”. He goes on to ask who is going to pay for the cleaning of his jacket because he spilled beer on it during the accident. I understand that this movie was made in 1985 but the MPAA rated Back to the Future PG.

All I’m saying is if you want to send a message about drug and alcohol use, it shouldn’t matter which character in the movie is doing it.

Anyways, back to the rating; yes, this movie has very adult content in it and comes very close on several occasions to having scenes that could be described as hardcore pornography. Is it overdone? I don’t think so. This movie is very sexually charged and I think it was tastefully done.

Still, not for kids…

AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 0

Instead of blathering on here, just reread the above section on RATING and you should understand why I don’t recommend this movie for children.

YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 2/7

This movie is about empowered women. First of all, the main characters fell in love and got married and have a (mostly) happy marriage and family unit in a country that is still coming to grips with people of the same sex doing that. A supporting character in this movie is an 18 year old girl who, while naïve, stretches her wings to see how far she can go. All of these are admirable things to look up to and aspire to for young women in this country. I guess what I’m trying to say is this movie is not about being straight or gay; it’s (partially) about taking control of your life, finding out what you want, grabbing hold of it and never letting it go.

ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 8/10

If you can get past the sex scenes and the innuendo and if you can get over the fact that two women kiss on screen several times, you can learn a lot from this movie (yes, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m just going to build on the point I just made). One of the things that I liked a lot about this movie is these people aren’t perfect and there aren’t too many arguments within the movie where someone is absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong.

This movie depicts a family, for better or worse, ‘til death do us part. I can fill volumes with times where I have gotten into an argument with a family member and despite being right (which happened a lot less than I like to admit) I still completely mishandle the situation. Nobody is perfect but I think the key point that this movie tries to get across is that you have to work at being a family and in the majority of cases, that work can pay enormous dividends.

GORE – 5

There was no gore or violence. If you’re hoping for violence out of this movie, you’ve obviously wandered into the wrong theater.

ROMANCE – 8

This is one of the more unconventional love stories within a movie that I have experienced. In most of the movies I watch (which admittedly, do not usually span a wide range of genres) if a married person had an affair, then there would almost certainly be a separation; usually of the married couple, sometimes of the unfaithful person from their head.

In this story, a lesbian has an affair with a man (which causes its own delicious awkwardness in and of itself). However, after shouting and arguing and hurt, Nic (Annette Bening) decides to stay with Jules (Julianne Moore) and make it work. Their marriage is far from a Romeo and Juliet fairy tale romance, but in some way, it’s actually better because they have to work at it and then they get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.

DIALOGUE – 10

This movie had some fantastic one-liners, most notably a wonderful scene where two lesbian parents have to “have the talk” with their 15 year old son whom they suspect might be gay. Hilarity ensues.

Another fantastic play on words was done by Mark Ruffalo’s character. Instead of saying “shut the %#&@ up” in a “no way, get outta here” sense, the writers gave Ruffalo the line “shut the front door”. It was said with the same inflection and was pulled off brilliantly by the actor. It was a very small thing and he said it perhaps two or three times but it was a nice little quirk of the character, much like the quirks that people have in real life that makes them so interesting…

SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5

There weren’t really any that I can think of…

STORY – 10

I think I’ve made my point about why this was a good movie and why the story is poignant to all people (of appropriate ages). I just hope that people who see it are able to look past the relative vulgarity and see the underlying message of the film because if you can’t, in my opinion, you have some issues.

ACTING/INTANGIBLES – 10/10

I’m lumping these together because the intangibles are the lead actresses, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Bening plays a doctor, a lifelong professional with a very well-paying job and enormous responsibility. Moore plays a hippie who is still searching for her professional calling and has gone through many jobs over the years.

Most importantly, these two actresses were able to convey (to me, at least) that they were a married couple first and a gay couple second. They bickered just like male-female married couples in other movies and they faced similar issues (their given sexual preferences did set up some good comic relief though).

TOTAL SCORE – 85/120
ADJUSTED – 71

This was a good movie and definitely worth a watch if you’re open-minded. The only reason it wasn’t rated higher is there is a lot of explicit content.

Until next time, enjoy the movies!