The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Ulrika Bjorck at Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2011

I went to see The Kids Are All Right at the Lobero Theatre the second day of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. I’d heard it was supposed to be a great film. And I was definitely not disappointed; I actually really liked it.

I found several reviews of the film, and I figured I wanted to chose the ones I thought reflected best what I, myself thought of the film and to let you know the story. Here are some cuttings from the reviews I’ve chosen.

Just click on the links below to view the full reviews.

““The Kids Are All Right” starts from the premise that gay marriage, an issue of ideological contention and cultural strife, is also an established social fact. Nic and Jules, a couple with two children, a Volvo and a tidy, spacious house in a pleasant suburban stretch of Southern California, are a picture of normalcy.” – A. O. Scott, The New York Times

“Here’s the pitch: Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) live with their teenagers Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) in a trendy LA neighborhood. Actually, the kids refer to their parents as a single entity: The Momses. Nic’s a doctor and a perfectionist; the looser, groovier Jules was almost an architect once and is now maybe sort of kind of thinking about landscape design. The children share an anonymous sperm-donor daddy and, at 15, Laser is dying to know who it was. Joni, 18 and fresh out of high school, reluctantly makes the phone call. Enter Mark Ruffalo as Paul, dude extraordinaire.”- Ty Burr, The Boston Globe.

““The Kids Are All Right” is directed by Lisa Cholodenko, from a script that she wrote with Stuart Blumberg, and what convinces most in her work here—as it did in her 1998 film “High Art”—is that it seems honestly torn between adventure and repose” –Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

“Moore, Bening and Ruffalo all deliver endearingly quirky comic performances, with Wasikowska also particularly effective as the confused and resentful Joni.”- Justin Lowe, The Hollywood Reporter

“It is Ruffalo’s best performance since his tremendously promising appearance in Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count On Me a decade ago in a similar role: lovable, immature, unreliable, exasperating. This could almost be the same character 10 years on.” – Peter Bradshaw, guardian.co.uk

“Witty, urbane and thoroughly entertaining, “The Kids Are All Right” is an ode to the virtues of family, in this case a surprisingly conventional one even with its two moms, two kids and one sperm donor. Whatever your politics, between peerless performances, lyrical direction and an adventurous script, this is the sort of pleasingly grown-up fare all too rare in the mainstream daze of this very dry summer.” – Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

To see the official trailer of this film, please click on the link below:

watch?v=DgwjTy_cohg&feature=player_detailpage

IMDb page:

The Kids Are All Right