Kids is more than all right

In an early scene in The Kids Are All Right, the new film from out filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon), Julianne Moore’s character, Jules, argues a Scrabble word with her teenage daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska). The word zoomer, Jules insists, is a legit one. “If you’re going to zoom somewhere,” she says, “you’re a zoomer.” It’s a light, comic moment and also a universal one (who hasn’t had a word-game argument before?). But this household is atypical in that it’s headed by two moms.

Kids (opening Friday 9) both illustrates and downplays gay issues by filling its 104 minutes with many nuanced moments like this (a result perhaps of Cholodenko’s four-year process of drafting the screenplay with writing partner Stuart Blumberg while also raising her son) as it paints a portrait of a family with a same-sex couple at the head of the household. But all is not well. Everyone is thrown into chaos when Joni and brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson) seek out their biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a laid-back restaurateur and charmer who falls hard for Jules and proves an irritant to type-A second mom Nic (Annette Bening).

Kids is intriguing in the way it portrays a typical American family (albeit a rather boho and sun-drenched California one) at a crossroads, and its timing couldn’t be better. A decision is expected any day in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the landmark case that aims to strike down the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the Golden State. Meanwhile, a study published by CNN last month suggests that kids of lesbians have fewer behavior problems. “I lamented many times over the last few years that somebody else is going to make this film before I get there and it’s going to be heartbreaking, or something’s going to shift in the culture where this feels dated,” Cholodenko says. “It makes me think there is a divine sort of order to things sometimes.”

None of Cholodenko’s fears came true, although given the speed at which LGBT families are gaining legitimacy, Kids will likely be remembered decades from now as a portrait of family life, not for its gay content. Jules, for example, feels overshadowed by Nic, a prestigious doctor. That idea resonated with Cholodenko, who stayed home to raise her son while her girlfriend worked. “That tension of being the domestic person while the other is out in the working world, what does that do to your identity?” Cholodenko wonders. “That’s important stuff for the film.”

But despite this family’s glut of everyday problems, the common notion that a burden of expectation is placed on gay moms and dads to be exceptional parents is addressed, at least in passing. “I think we almost want to be ironic about that,” Cholodenko says. “When you peel back the curtain, it’s all the same shit. Anybody can be a good parent and anybody can be a crappy parent. We wanted to play with that in how conventional we made this family.”

Still, a gay family drama with two female leads doesn’t exactly spell box-office gold, and Cholodenko worried the film (shot in a mere 23 days) might not get made at all. She blames Hollywood’s reliance on the science of forecasting, including assessments of how to market the film, how successful Cholodenko’s past efforts were and how bankable its stars are. “I guess when they broke down their predictions, it didn’t totally add up,” she says. But Kids was a Sundance smash, and Focus bought it for a reported $5 million. “I think people underestimated what the tone would be,” Cholodenko says. “[The studios realized] that they could sell it as a comedy.”

A comedy it may be (at least at times), but we hope this lovely film finds legs based on its ability to offer adults an alternative to summer blockbuster drivel. In one scene, Jules and Nic find themselves in the awkward position of having to justify their appetite for gay, male porn. If that isn’t highbrow entertainment, we don’t know what is.

The Kids Are All Right opens Friday 9.

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