'The Kid's Are All Right' **stars

'the kids are all right' and so are the adults. merely all right. the adults are a same sex couple and paul the biological dad who will soon be referred to by one of the moms as an interloper. this is really just a typical unconventional family trying to live conventionally. now let me say upfront i know unconventional families and enjoy them. just not this one all that much.

the couple nic and jules, portrayed by annette benning and julianne moore respectively, shared the sperm donor portrayed by mark ruffalo although 3 years apart. fast forward 15 years and one of the 'donations' wants to meet his biological dad. sister joni not so much. but they do and they like him. and then the moms meet him. jules likes him well enough but not nic whose entire world is threatened by him. however, in fact jules likes him a bit too much. so maybe nic is right. but nic is just too damn rigid. it is so terribly unsurprising when jules gets "that bit too close" i mentioned. between the rigidity and alcohol consumption by nic all hell breaks loose. jules and nic fight, lazer who set the whole thing in motion kinda crumbles like a whimp and joni goes to college.

poor paul the donor who was minding his own business, running a restaurant and growing vegetables to start off with gets kicked in the balls, the balls he so willingly donated from for a measly $60.00 a pop, so to speak. he's sucker punched by the lot of them. he should have run to the hills and far away from this group sooner. he probably wished by the end of this mess that his cell had gone dead and never answered phone call number one to begin with.

now somehow in this mess there are three really wonderful performances and one surprisingly good one. annette benning is the surprisingly good performance. i've never been a fan but she plays this rigid alcoholic lesbian pretty good. well the lesbian and alcoholic parts anyway. i've always found her pretty rigid on screen so that was no stretch.

julianne moore is truly delightful and convincing as the 'what the hell have i done' jules.

mark ruffalo is in his always brilliant mode in yet another understated role and thus far under-rated as usual performance. but not by me.

but the best of the lot is joni played by mia wasikowska <'alice in wonderland'> as the 'donation' that didn't want any part of this mess in the first place. she was right. by the film's end she is off to college. if she is really smart she will never go home again. or go live with the the sperm donor dad who seems the sanest of the lot.

there is oscar buzz surrounding this film. what can i say? i suspect they will not take the oscar away from 'the hurt locker' so anything is possible. walk don't run to see this movie. better still rent it. in cinematic history it is no more meaningful than spitting into a lake.








*who the hell names a kid lazer?

(and just for the record...as a gay man i really wanted to like this movie. i long for more good gay themed films. this just isn't one of them. and i find it patronizing that straight critic's are going all out and falling all over themselves trying to be cool in their praise. )