First of all, "The Kids" are JUST all right. If that.
This is one of those movies that came out of Sundance and seemed to have nothing but positive momentum behind it. Everyone was talking about it. How charming it is. How funny it is. How human and "real" it is. No one said a word about how completely average and disappointing it really is. No one told me that it would be an utter let down. So, let me be the first to tell all of you. This is not a great movie.
This movie does not deserve a third of the hype and praise it has received. The film does not deserve an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. If there is one picture in the field this year that highlights how far the ten Best Picture nominees stretches things, it is this movie. What is it doing there?! Also, Annette Bening does not deserve a nomination for Best Actress. I'm sorry, she doesn't. She's completely fine in the picture. She plays the highly-strung and tightly-wound Annette Bening-type. As she does in most pictures. Julianne Moore has the more profound experience on screen in this picture and, in my opinion, deserves the credit (if any) for carrying the film. For the record, Mark Ruffalo is fairly charming and does a nice job. I am not just saying that because he is from Wisconsin.
The film, as I'm sure most of you have heard, centers around a family and their pursuit of roots. Moore and Bening play a lesbian couple who have been happily married for more than twenty years. They play the couple sweetly as two people who have spent a long time together and who have, for the most part, accepted the other's faults. The film is quick to point out, however, that maybe Bening is getting a little annoyed by Moore's quirkiness and impulsiveness. Moore's character cannot seem to hold a job and is really searching for where she'll fit, especially with one of their two lovely children moving on to college soon.
The film starts wonderfully enough. It paints a portrait of this family as completely normal. There is no big deal made of the fact that these two intelligent, centered, perfectly normal kids were raised by two women. The couple is portrayed as healthy and happy. When the kids decide to reach out to their sperm donor dad (Ruffalo), he is portrayed as happy, successful, and normal. The first half hour of the movie is really pretty fun. I actually turned to my wife at the thirty minute mark and said "this is sort of cool. To see this type of family and their unique needs and situation played so straight is interesting. I hope they don't have some of the characters sleep together or one of the women develop a complex about whether they truly are a lesbian or something." No kidding. I said that OUT LOUD. You can guess where the rest of the movie goes from here.
For as many people that are heralding this movie as a triumph of gay-family values, I wonder how many have actually seen it. Yes this movie is about two lesbians who raised beautiful children. But it is also about one of those women having an affair with a man, for no real reason. It portrays her sexuality as a choice or something, that after twenty years in a happy, monogamous relationship, she suddenly questions. And plays that for "laughs," I suppose.
This movie just goes right off the rails and I wish it had stayed there. Buried deep in the "independent film" section of Netflix, languishing in anonymity. Instead, it has had fanfare heaped upon it. I recommend that you leave this one be and focus on one of the more deserving Best Picture nominees this year.
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