Sapphic sophistication

After directing several respectable, relatively small-scale films including Cavedweller (2004) and Laurel Canyon (2002), as well as episodes of successful television shows like Six Feet Under, director Lisa Cholodenko has made a splash with The Kids Are All Right, a postmodern family drama featuring several high-end actors in top form. The film has its flaws but is nonetheless challenging, rewarding and ultimately enjoyable.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play Nic and Jules, respectively, a 40-something lesbian couple in Los Angeles who have a 15-year-old son with the tragically hip name "Laser" and a daughter, Joni, who is preparing to leave for college. All is well in this alternative family, except for a few minor adolescent dramas. Laser - who is, incidentally, the oldest-looking 15-year-old you've never met - has been spending an inordinate amount of time with his no-good friend Clay, causing Jules and Nic to suspect he is gay. Meanwhile, Joni is harboring an unrequited crush on her best male friend.

The family's idyll is fractured, however, when Laser and Joni seek out the sperm donor who impregnated their "moms," as they collectively refer to Nic and Jules. After some sleuthing courtesy of the sperm bank, they find Paul, a gruff yet sensitive, motorcycle-driving, organic restaurant-owning native Californian.

If there was ever a character who covered all the bases, it is Paul. That said, Ruffalo's turn as Paul is entirely admirable. He truly inhabits this strangely successful stoner who becomes more infantile as more emotional demands are put on him by his foster family.

Nic and Jules are at first horrified that their children have gone behind their backs to find Paul, but after inviting the children's biological father over for a barbeque and putting the screws to him, so to speak, they are somewhat won over by his laid-back personality and his seeming unwillingness to interfere in the family's life.

Bening and Moore play wonderfully off one another in several group scenes, and their differing personalities are starkly contrasted: This is a couple beginning to drift apart after many happy years of marriage. The cracks between them are only deepened in the ensuing weeks.

Nic is bull-headed, overbearing and suspicious of Paul, whom she feels is driving a wedge between her and her children. Jules meanwhile becomes more infatuated with Paul as she begins landscaping his backyard. For their part, the children seemingly can't get enough of this male presence who has been missing thus far in their lives.

One significant flaw in the film is a lack of chemistry in this postmodern family unit. Bening and Moore put in admirable performances as sophisticated Sapphic matriarchs, but it is difficult to believe that these children are actually theirs. This rather rag-tag group comes off more as a gang of friends than an actual family.

Another questionable choice is the script's inexplicable crassness. Several characters are hypersexualized, a trait that is first introduced to the film in the form of Joni's obnoxious friend Sasha, who turns every statement into a sexual innuendo. But several characters manage to continually steer innocent conversation into commentary on the poor man's opera for no apparent reason other than, perhaps, shock value.

Profanity is neither hip nor cutting edge - it is cloying. One wonders why Cholodenko, who wrote the film with Stuart Blumberg, felt compelled to steer an otherwise intelligent script from evocative to quasi-provocative.

Sperm-themed films seem to be a burgeoning genre of their own (The Switch being the most obvious recent addition), but The Kids Are All Right challenges the traditions of the family drama and features excellent performances all around. It is not a perfect film, but even the most stringent critic will agree it is more than all right. Time will tell whether Chodolenko can harden her hipness into something truly devastating, but she is certainly one to watch.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com