Movie Review: "The Kids Are Alright" (2010)

"The Kids Are Alright" is a movie with good acting, an interesting premise, and in my opinion a slightly mishandled story not taking full advantage of either one.

The movie "The Kids Are Alright: was directed by Lisa Cholodenko from a script written by herself and Stuart Blumberg. It is about two children raised by their lesbian mothers who seek out the sperm donor who helped spawn them. They bring him into not only their lives, but their mothers, and the boinds of family are tested as one of the mothers begins a relationship with the man. It stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Annette Bening, Mia Wasikowska, and Josh Hutcherson.

The leading ladies Julianne Moore and Annette Bening put in the A plus types of performances you would expect from them. Mark Ruffalo is as likeable as ever and the children are good as well, especially Mia Wasikowska. However, I do agree with Annette Bening NOT winning the Oscar she was nominated for in regards to this role. Even though she has yet to capitalize on a nomination the Academy chose Natalie Portman's "Black Swan" performance over Annette's lesbian and rightfully so. Maybe Annette is cursed though by making it look so easy as she handles the drama, whereas Natalie Portman really showed the turmoil she was putting herself through in the raw performance. On a quick side note, model turned actress Yaya DaCosta was very sexy in her small role!

"The Kids Are Alright" ends up straying away from the kids and their perspective on things. Instead we end up following Julianne Moore as she has an affair and really "The Kids Are All Lost" was what I was thinking as the movie progressed. This is driven home in the end when it once again seems to be trying to show how the family comes back together with the kids onboard in supporting their mothers, but I did not feel anything plausible about how the kids react to everything. I did not really get into their thought process to much as their development got shuffled into the background for most of the movie. Mark Ruffalo's character is pretty much lost by the end of the movie as well as no real closure is given to him in the climax. I understood the ending, but did not agree with the way it went around.

"The Kids Are Alright" is just "Alright." Give it accolades and award nominations, but it's not the greatest by any means and one I'll forget in the near future. And if you are a dude just looking for some hot lesbian scenes, you're kind of renting the wrong movie.