"Indie" movies these days are just all the rage. Ever since "Little Miss Sunshine" (I believe) people have noticed that there's other movies out there besides the big blockbusters that Hollywood puts out, hoping explosions and robots and 3D will bring in the most $$. Then "Juno" came along and everyone fell in love with Michael Cera (even more) and were once again surprised by these Sundance-esque pieces. I saw the "indie" movie "Cyrus" a while back and liked it for its simplicity of showing believable people react and interact in believable circumstances. Because that's what most "indie" movies do. Whereas big blockbusters and movies with larger budgets go for the simplicity of stereotypes like the stupid stoner, buff action-hero, sinister bad guy, and so on and so forth, movies like "The Kids are All Right" attempt to show real life. And that can be a really hard thing to do. Much harder than blowing up a building like Michael Bay.
Fortunately enough, this movie succeeds on multiple levels of character development bolstered by top-notch acting combined with a great original script that, surprisingly enough, isn't that predictable. Here we have Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening), a lesbian couple with two kids, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) the 18 year-old daughter, and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) the 15 year-old son. Everything's just dandy with this family until Laser finally convinces Joni to contact Jules and Nic's sperm donor Paul (Mark Ruffalo). What started as curiosity for the kids soon turns into friendship that begins to have its effects on the family and Jules and Nic's relationship.
At first glance, this looks like it might be trying to push some sort of message at the audience about modern families and how gay/lesbian couples can raise kids just as well or maybe the intrusion of Paul will show how kids actually need a father figure. But thankfully, this kind of unnecessary conflict is avoided and we're only asked to understand these characters, where each is coming from, and how their actions effect others. As I said before, Paul and each member of this family are well crafted characters and are not contrived to fit a particular role. The audience soon comes to realize that Nic can be uptight and is a perfectionist and expects a great deal from her children and suspicious of anything new. Jules on the other hand is more laid back, unorganized, and tries new things. Paul is similar to Jules with hippy-ish tendencies and generally clashes with Nic's personality. And the conflicts start.
I was worried cliches and ridiculous circumstances/events were going to start popping up all over the place as forms of comedy and/or drama, and there were a few times where they almost happened, but things never went too far. The comedy relief is generally funny and never in your face like "wait for it....wait....ok, LAUGH NOW". And I say "comedy relief" because it really is more of a drama. In the end, this movie was more depressing than I thought it would be. Like real life, these people are imperfect, mistakes are made, and people are hurt. They generally try to be good and work things out, but it's hard nonetheless.
Amongst all this drama I kept waiting for the Hollywood ending of reconciliation and happiness, but again, I was surprised to find that everything didn't work out. Hey, sounds like REALITY. Some things just don't get worked out, at least, not right away and for a time, things suck. But as the title tells us, in the end, the kids ARE "all right". One of the messages of the movie, I believe, that tells us no matter what the family circumstances (gay, lesbian, straight, single) tough things will happen but the kids remain a motivation to keep things together so that they can have the best start on life possible. I'm aware the whole "life sucks and things get crazy but you have to keep going" theme is a highly popular one in stories in general and "indie" movies in particular, but it's done exceptionally well here.
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