Henry's Dad Saw: The Kids Are All Right

I had no interest in seeing this one, but my parents did, and I asked my dad to pass along his thoughts...


It's nice that there is a movie about a pair of gay women raising a normal family. If this were to be a breakthrough movie, it would be too bad they picked a couple who watches male porn to get aroused in earshot of their children, and one of whom has to sleep with a handsome, carefree man (sperm donor for their children) in order them to learn how to be good parents and to love each other. It would also be too bad that one of the two, the one played by Julianne Moore, seems at some time before the start of the movie to have suffered a serious brain injury that is never acknowledged.

But some overblown reviews notwithstanding, this film is not designed to be a breakthrough but a romantic comedy with no other goal but to entertain, so it would be unfair to harp on the screenwriting and acting choices mentioned above. The more relevant deficiency is the almost total absence of humor. At the packed screening I attended, there was a sort of forced laughter from a small subset of the audience on six or seven occasions, each of which announced itself as a laugh line without delivering any reason to comply beyond the bare announcement.

Comedy is often a matter of taste and mood, but it puzzled this reviewer that a movie that seemed to generate so little real laughter from its target audience has been so affectionately received. The characters are likable enough-- Annette Bening woks hard as a pedantic hag who learns to roll with the punches of betrayal. Julianne Moore looks nice in a sort of boy scout leader garb and is mildly pleasant even though the movie never acknowledges how painfully stupid her character is. The kids are dull as can be but realistic enough and well played. Mark Rufalo trades in his usual halting, disconnected, tortured loner for a halting, disconnected, untroubled Lothario. He is supposed to have learned something from the experience, but the only expression is that he inexplicably and rudely dumps another woman who seems to care about him.

If you liked The Squid and the Whale, Far From Heaven, or the one where Paul Giamatti blathers about Merlot than you may love this one too, since this reviewer was similarly baffled by the positive reviews of those.



That's all from my Dad...glad to hear my initials doubts about the movie are confirmed by someone I trust...