The Kids Are All Right

There's something about "The Kids Are All Right" that none of the other best picture noms, the ones that I've seen at least, has and that is contemporary relevance. Maybe it's the fact that it takes place in California that made the film more relatable for me. Being from California, you tend to see or even know "non-traditional" families more often than you would in say, the Midwest or the South.

As in any "traditional" (man + woman) marriage and family, marriage between Nic (Annette Benning being phenomenal as usual) and Jules (Julianne Moore being almost even more phenomenal than Benning) and their two children Joni (named after Joni Mitchell, naturally) and Laser (so rad) is no picnic, at least not during the summer before Joni goes to college. Being 2 women, Nic and Jules can't have children the good ole fashioned way and so they go to a sperm bank and pick and choose the sperm from a candidate who is studying International Relations in college at the time. Nic and Jules each bear one child from the candidate's sperm.

18 years later Joni and Laser are curious to meet the man who makes up half of their gene pool. Enter Paul (Mark Ruffalo), perfectly cast as the scruffy, uncoordinated but still outdoorsy, DIY, owner of a "local foods" restaurant and organic co-op garden (ah California I miss thee). The three hit it off, Paul gets introduced to the "Moms" and everything is great for a time. Then life comes in, as it always does. With too much time being spent around Paul by the children and Jules, aspiring landscape artist who is working on making Paul's garden "fecund", Nic gets jealous and the family life begins to deteriorate from there. The question being, "How involved should a sperm donor who got paid $60 a pop for his services once upon a time, be involved in the lives of his biological offspring?"

Throughout the film there are many tantrums thrown by the 18-year old being stifled by her parents, fights between spouses, extreme lacks of communication between the spouses, parents scolding children, etc. The point being that, hey the lesbian married couple both as spouses and parents have just as many problems as any other family. Whodathunk?! People are people. Marriage is difficult regardless of [whatever].

"Marriage is hard... Just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing. It's a fucking marathon, okay? So, sometimes, you know, you're together for so long, that you just... You stop seeing the other person. You just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails and act grubby and make stupid choices... You know if I read more Russian novels, then..."

I won't use a blogger to go off on a LGBTQIA rights tangent, because, let's face it, ranting on a movie reviewing blog I use as a distraction probably only read by my facebook friends and a handful of others is just absurd. Suffice it to say that The Kids Are All Right is, in my very humble opinion, the only Oscar Best Picture nominee that deals with something so relevant in 21st American society. I have yet to see The Fighter or Winter's Bone, but I'll get around to that this week sometime. Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right has quickly shot up to my number 2 spot due to its portrayal of a modern American family.

Updated Ranking:

1. Black Swan
2. The Kids Are All Right
3. Inception
4. The King's Speech
5. True Grit
6. 127 Hours
7. Toy Story 3
8. The Social Network