MOVIE REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right

Submitted by Seth Rogovoy on August 1, 2010 - 9:21pm
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THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
 Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko
Starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo
 
 
Reviewed by Seth Rogovoy
 
 
While on the surface The Kids Are All Right might seem to be an edgy, alternative comedy, what with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore turning in Oscar-caliber performances as a lesbian couple and parents of two teenagers, it becomes apparent rather quickly that this is quite a conventional couple and a conventional film about marriage. In fact, its virtues – of which there are many – are downright classical, if farcical, in that the relatively settled if unorthodox family is upended with the appearance of, gasp, the biological father of the children. Once he is on the scene, every relationship is twisted or bent out of shape, like something out of Shakespeare or Jane Austen. That the conclusion of this surprisingly glossy take on bourgeois California life is more Clint Eastwood than Sofia Coppola says as much about our changing mores as it does about Hollywood.
 
 
Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s award-winning editor-in-chief and cultural critic.
 
 

 

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