The Kids Are Alright

The Kids are Alright is a pretty neat film about a family with two teenage kids and their lesbian parents who end up meeting thee kid’s biological father. When he is introduced into their lives, lots of family dynamics start to change. I liked this movie for a few reasons: the performances and writing seemed quite natural (most of the time) and it was dealing with a set of unique relationships which I personally have no experience with.

There are a lot of complex emotions floating around in this movie which are both interesting and challenging to figure out. The two moms (Annette Benning and Julianne Moore) have a relationship which seems rather unbalanced, the kids each have one of the moms as their biological mom, and now Paul comes in who isn’t really their father but does feel a connection to these kids regardless. There’s a plot development which honestly surprised me (for those who have seen the film, I’m talking about the landscaping development), though I still can’t decide it that was a benefit or a detriment to the film.

The acting is pretty solid throughout, but I really enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as the free-living Paul and Mia Wasikowska as the daughter. I would have liked to see more interaction between those two, as well as with the son too.

This is a really neat movie, though I feel like it didn’t quite reach its potential. As I said before, I’m not sure they went the right direction with the plot twist in the middle. For one, it made the conflict too obvious and lessened the awkward and more subtle conflict which arose naturally. Another reason was that it took the focus off the kids and put it more on the adults, when I was actually more interested in how the kids deal with this new, unorthodox relationship. Still, a pretty good film. 8/10