Lisa Cholodenko’s family comedy is funny, perceptive and carried by performances that make long familiarity convincing. It sometimes settles difficult questions too comfortably, but Annette Bening and Julianne Moore give the marriage enough friction to keep it honest.
Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right is a warm, sharply acted family comedy that we recommend with one reservation: it sometimes makes its difficult questions too easy to answer. The arrival of a sperm donor could have supplied a succession of jokes about an unusual household. Instead, the film pays attention to the couple already raising the children. Their routines have become habits, and those habits can irritate the people they once reassured. The comedy comes from recognising how much irritation a loving family can accommodate.
Annette Bening plays Nic with a watchfulness that makes even reasonable concern feel faintly supervisory. Julianne Moore’s Jules is less firmly in command, and the performance gives her uncertainty weight without asking us to find it charming. Together they suggest years of knowing what the other person will say and still wishing she would say something else. We laughed at the mothers’ strained efforts to answer a serious question. Their determination to be sensible makes the exchange awkward, and both actors let the worry show through the composure.
Mark Ruffalo makes Paul easy company, which is exactly what complicates matters. He brings an appealing looseness to a family whose members already know one another’s faults, and the actor lets us enjoy that change without insisting that everyone should welcome it. Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson give Joni and Laser distinct reactions to the adults around them. Neither performance treats a child’s curiosity as a convenient excuse to start the plot. Their presence keeps the parental anxieties in proportion.
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg are good at making considerate language sound mildly aggressive. The family members want to be decent, open-minded people, and that gives them elaborate ways to avoid saying something simple and unkind. We can hear affection and exasperation in the same exchange. Occasionally, though, the dialogue becomes too pleased with its grasp of liberal parenting. The cast usually keeps it conversational, but there are moments when we can hear the writers arranging the joke.
Igor Jadue-Lillo’s colourful photography gives the domestic comedy an agreeable brightness without making its discomfort feel out of place. Julie Berghoff’s production design makes the household feel comfortably established, giving the disruption somewhere credible to happen. Jeffrey M. Werner’s editing gives the exchanges a conversational rhythm; the jokes do not feel detached from the disagreements. Carter Burwell’s music leaves the awkwardness with the actors, where it belongs. These contributions work together without making the family’s troubles feel excessively polished for our enjoyment.
The reservation concerns how firmly the script wants to settle what family means. There is room here for selfishness and confusion, but less willingness to leave their consequences untidied. Without giving away how the relationships develop, some of the writing grows more instructive than these performances need. We wanted the film to trust the uncomfortable feelings it had already stirred. A little more patience with that discomfort would have made the drama stronger.
By the standards of family comedy, this is unusually attentive to the work of remaining a couple while being parents. It allows the women to be difficult without making their sexuality an explanation for every difficulty. That freedom gives the actors space to be funny, cross and occasionally unfair. Go for the performances and the accuracy of the domestic irritation. Allow for a screenplay that sometimes wants everyone to learn the lesson before they have finished the conversation.
