Review: The Kids Are All Right

Review: The Kids Are All Right

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Here I go again. Not liking a film almost every notable critic likes. Let me say some positive things first. Annette Bening does a great job portraying a driven professional woman with control issues. And Julianne Moore also does a fine job as a bright woman who finds herself at loose ends as her oldest child goes off to college. Both these excellent performances, however, are undermined by the annoying subtext of the movie: "What every woman needs (even if she's a lesbian) is a good man." I just didn't buy it. That, combined with dialog in California-style babble-speak, made the movie much less than it could have been. (I do realize that there might have been gentle satire at work with the annoying script, but, if that's so, it didn't work for me.)

Bening and Moore portray a lesbian couple with a long-standing relationship. Each of them has had a child by the same anonymous sperm donor. The kids want to find and get to know their dad. Into their lives marches Mark Ruffalo, a funny, passionate free-spirit destined to wreak havoc in their lives. It's a great basis for a story, but, in the end, it only strains our credibility.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it