The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Self-fulfilling prophecy: I expected to love this. I did, and Jack liked it, too. The story of a long-married lesbian couple whose two kids seek out their (common) sperm donor has a little something for all preferences. Most anyone can relate to the bickering between two people who have been together a long time, teenagers who roll their eyes and try to become independent, and then there's some other stuff I won't divulge. We did have a couple of warnings. Mary & Bob were put off by graphic sex scenes and Christiana told Amy it's great but DO NOT see it with your parents. And then there are the imdb discussion boards, one in particular, bemoaning which sex scenes are graphic, which are not, and page after page about lesbians' getting no respect despite being leads in the movie. Those discussions contain spoilers but are food for conversation after you have seen the movie.

I was already a fan of director/writer Lisa Cholodenko (both High Art (1998), which won best screenplay at Sundance, and Laurel Canyon (2002) are very good), and in this she shared writing duties with Stuart Blumberg (close friend of Edward Norton, Blumberg wrote the script for Norton's directorial debut Keeping the Faith (2002), and co-wrote the teenage-boy-fantasy movie The Girl Next Door (2004)). Someone wrote recently that Annette Bening was brave to have played this role (her character's name is Nic). After seeing Mother and Child (in which I covered Bening's accomplishments) I commented that I doubted if more bravery was needed for this movie than that one (in that one, she is mean, unattractive, and completely shut down) and my opinion still stands. In this one she plays a fully realized wife and mother with a full range of emotions. Wonderful, but (picture me shrugging) not all that brave. Julianne Moore (I wrote about her in Chloe and A Single Man) also does a wonderful job as Jules and they both had me believing they were gay (though perhaps I don't have the best gay-dar; I'll ask around and see what some more qualified people think in that regard). Mark Ruffalo (since I wrote about him in The Brothers Bloom he was in Where the Wild Things Are, Shutter Island, and Date Night) played opposite Moore in Blindness, and this time he's great as the sort of Peter Pan character needed for the role. Mia Wasikowska (I wrote about her in Alice in Wonderland), once again ditches her native English accent to play American college-bound teenager Joni and she is terrific, as is Josh Hutcherson (he's been working since he was 10 in 2002, but I haven't seen any of it) as her brother Laser.

Three children of celebrities are in this movie: Eric Eisner (son of Disney exec Michael Eisner) and his wife Lisa are, I think, the other grown-up couple out to dinner with Nic and Jules late in the movie; Sasha Spielberg (20 year old daughter of Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw) has a couple of lines in a party scene (look for the girl in profile); and, most importantly, Zosia Mamet (22 year old daughter of David Mamet and Lindsay Crouse, Zosia had a wonderful series arc in United States of Tara as well as a teensy part in Greenberg) is Joni's randy friend Sasha.

This movie has 18 producers, including co's and exec's, but it does not win my Producers' Plethora Prize. That title is still held by Battle in Seattle with 19, and Grace is Gone, with 17, moves to third place.