Oscarwatch 2011 - The Kids Are All Right

Sticking with my love of all things lesbian (Lillith fair, sports, Ellen's wardrobe) — I loved this movie! I mean besides the fact that you can't really go wrong with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore being our leading ladies in love, the script provides us with a story that is a much more realistic look at a relationship than most traditional movies about love.

The story goes something like this: Nic and Jules are a married couple with two children (conceived using a sperm donor). Everything seems okay for the most part with their family... that is until the kids decide to contact their free spirited, restaurant owning birth father Paul (played spot on by Mark Ruffalo). The first meeting with Paul and the moms goes better than you'd expect — he even offers to hire Jules to design his backyard. But as he gets closer and closer into this family's affairs, the small cracks in this happy clan grow into something much deeper.

The culmination of these conflicts manifests during one of my favorite scenes of the movie - a family dinner at Paul's house that turns sour once Nic realizes that something has been going on behind her back (spoiler alert: Jules and Paul and SEX SEX SEX). Her moment of awakening to this news is executed so masterfully, it feels as if you yourself are going through this experience. Bening played this scene so amazingly, I was pulled into her character's emotional state completely. It really affected me, so that's a job well done.

Anyways, needless to say after this moment the moms have a lot of stuff to sort out. Was it the sperm donor's doing that all the cracks in their marriage finally gave way, or was it bound to happen? What do you do when you realize that your partner hasn't been faithful? How do you carry on as a family? The culmination of this film explores all these questions and more, and finally ends with a college drop off scene that got even the most stone faced person I know to crack a tear (@HoovNews). And if she was crying, you can only imagine the volume of tears droppin down my face...

I really, really enjoyed this movie. The plot, the amazing acting, the unconventional look at family... it all worked so well. I think when a film can draw you into itself so fully that you are experiencing (or flash back to when you did experience) the character's exact feelings, that not only attests to great writing, but masterful acting. And that's what Bening has done for me here. I don't think she's going to beat out Portman for the Oscar, but if she did, my emotions will mimic hers again, but this time it will be happiness.


Rating:

4.5 out of 5 on the Marci scale.