CINEMATIC Review

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT   ***

Lisa Cholodenko

2010

IDEA:   The kids of two married women search for their biological father, but when he arrives family dynamics take drastic shifts.

BLURB:   The Kids Are All Right doesn’t suffer in the performance arena. Mark Ruffalo as an unwanted sperm donor father, Julianne Moore as the feebler half of a same-sex marriage, and Annette Bening as the more dominant half are nothing short of exceptional. Their mere presence incites an earnest giddiness that keeps the film’s jocular conversations afloat, the frolicking interplay a highly enjoyable match of timing and line delivery. But for all they do to keep the picture a loose, unconventional family romp, some particular narrative turns threaten to turn it undesirably conventional, complete with a lazy plot development that would feel more at home in a soap opera than in a film striving for positive sincerity. When it’s bright, it’s bright – when it’s playing off typical Hollywood elements, it doesn’t quite reach the bar.