Let’s get the bugbears out of the way first.<\/p>\n
The Kids Are Alright<\/em> carries many of the same annoying Hollywood casting cliches and genre tropes that we’ve had for many years now.\u00a0 It is a film about a lesbian couple where the starring roles are played by two heterosexual actors.\u00a0 Just like Brokeback Mountain<\/em>, I Love You Phillip Morris<\/em>, Milk<\/em>, Black Swan<\/em>, A Single Man<\/em> and virtually every other high profile Hollywood film with prominent gay roles.\u00a0 Casting gay people in gay roles remains the exception and not the rule in Tinsel Town and this film is no different.\u00a0 The film rather cheekily acknowledges this when one of the lesbian mothers explains that she struggles to watch lesbian porn because they cast straight women who ‘come off as fake’.\u00a0 Wink, wink.<\/p>\n And just like many other gay roles in film and television, one of the lesbian characters in The Kids Are Alright<\/em> momentarily ‘turns’ and engages in a heterosexual affair.<\/p>\n These two footnotes make The Kids Are Alright<\/em> seem like a cynical production and this diatribe probably make me sound like a skeptical viewer.\u00a0 And yet, somwhat against the odds, this is actually an enjoyable film about a interesting family of well rounded characters that feel sincere and credible.\u00a0 A comparison I could draw on would be Modern Family<\/em>, a TV sitcom show whose premise sounds awful on paper and yet it manages to work once you become engaged and charmed with the characters who are brought to life by the actors.<\/p>\n I don’t know if I missed it but I don’t think the family in The Kids Are Alright<\/em> are given a surname.\u00a0 We just know the parents as Nic and Jules.\u00a0 They have two children via artificial insemination:\u00a0 Joni and Laser.\u00a0 You might recognize them as Alice in Wonderland<\/em> and That Kid From Bridge To Terebithia<\/em>.\u00a0 Nic is a strong-willed family matriarch.\u00a0 As the breadwinner, she is the strictest parent with the kids and also domineering in her relationship with Jules.\u00a0 Also, Nic is an alcoholic who likes to quaff red wine.\u00a0 For her part, Jules is laid back and has hippy-ish sensibilities.<\/p>\n On her eighteenth birthday, with some pressure from her younger brother Laser, Joni decides to seek out the identity of her biological father.\u00a0 A couple of quick calls to the clinic later (the film moves at a rather brisk pace) and they are put in touch with Paul, a laid back bohemian restaurant owner who rides a motorbike and says ‘right on’ a lot.<\/p>\n After the parents meet Paul, Jules agrees to take up a landscaping project for Paul’s garden.\u00a0 One thing leads to another and she ends up landscaping his pants instead.<\/p>\n The rest of the film explores the consequences this action has on the family.\u00a0 Paul’s effect on the entire family is considerable and although his affair with Jules is inappropriate, it serves as a catalyst for bringing out some longstanding tension and conflict between Jules and Nic.<\/p>\n The Kids Are All Alright<\/em> may flow like a Slice of Life film but it doesn’t end inconclusively.\u00a0 There is definite closure in many of the relationships and the film draws to a close on a milestone occasion for the family: Joni moves out of the house and into a dorm to attend college.\u00a0 On the car ride back home, Laser suggests that despite the parent’s recent marital strife they should stay together.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 ‘Because you’re old’ he says.<\/p>\n As a character piece, this is a charming film and the family is very endearing.\u00a0 Reading the director Lisa Cholodenko’s biography online, it appears to be quite a personal work as Lisa herself is a lesbian mother who has a family where the child was conceived via an anonymous donor.\u00a0 If she did draw on her own experiences to colour the film with extra detail and personality, it has definitely been to the film’s betterment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’ll have a gay old time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[797,796,795],"class_list":["post-4301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","tag-annette-bening","tag-julianne-moore","tag-the-kids-are-alright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4301"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4406,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4301\/revisions\/4406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}