The Kids Are All Right

In The Kids Are All Right, from writer-director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art), Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play a longtime couple whose bright, curious teenage kids (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson) track down organic chef-restaurateur Mark Ruffalo, their sperm donor birth father. Both Bening, a tightly wound doctor with a too-bright smile, and the earthier, hippy-dippy Moore try to welcome Ruffalo into their California bohemian family, mostly for the sake of the kids.  His presence reopens old wounds and ignites tensions that are funny, sexy and universal, if a bit too comfy at times.

In the era of Prop 8 and rampant sexual hypocrisy, it’s practically revolutionary to see a movie in which alternative lifestyles aren’t turned into a Major Issue or cretinous frat boy jokes. Bening, Moore and Ruffalo are in great, relaxed comedic form, putting their own quirky spin on a barbed, incisive and intelligent script by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg. Ruffalo is especially good as the loner with the “no stress” attitude who occasionally reveals the slightly weasel-y Peter Pan lurking under the charisma and charm. Up-and-comers Wasikowska and Hutcherson (who resembles a young James Caan) are very much on their game as well.  Everyone makes it look so breezy and entertaining that it’s easy to forget that in a red state, a loving gay relationship as presented here is the stuff of horror or science fiction.