Maybe Watch This: The Kids are All Right

Movie Poster for The Kids are All Right

I am not going to lie and say that I love every drama out there, I do not and I do not think that is possible. Instead, I try and find the dramatic movies that make me feel like I have learned something by the end that I would not have known otherwise. And to say I have learned something by the end of the movie is not the same as saying that I felt like I knew exactly what I had learned, but there was some sort of educational evolution that happened in my head, a connecting of understandings that made me feel happy. In the past this has happened with such great films as Almost Famous (which I recently just re-watched) or Forest Gump (which was so good I went and read the book). I call these the good-feeling movies, as that is what they leave you with even if the ending is sad.

So taking a stab into the dark, I decided to watch a movie that was both recommended by a friend as good, a fact I learned after starting the film, and from the advice of an online review website. I think I have a lot more words to say about this movie then just that, as I do think this movie covers a lot of complicated topics and neither my friend nor the review I read really mentioned any of them. Here's my review of The Kids are All Right.

The Kids are All Right [2010]

For a quick synopsis of this film, I could simply leave it at two lesbians decided to have kids and so they went to the sperm bank and chose what they thought would be a wonderful participant. Both get pregnant off the same guy's sperm, though amazingly there are a few years difference in their children so apparently they put his sperm on hold or something, but I digress. Anyway, the children have grown-up (for the most part) and are in high school with the eldest daughter about to graduate and go to college. The daughter is a straight A student, the son is not-so-much so, and up until now life has been good. That is the basic background for this film.

The conflict that they start off with, which will not be the conflict by the end of the film, is that the son wants to meet his biological father. Since his sister is eighteen years old, she can actually place the call to the sperm bank and have them contact their biological dad to see if he wants to have a life with them. So the dad comes back into the picture and the film revolves around what happens when someone who was never planned to be a part of the family becomes a part of a strange family.

Oh, and one more thing before I start this review, I have nothing against homosexuals or lesbians. In fact, I support everyone's right to get married to the one they love, so please do not think that I use any of the terms in this review in a demeaning way. I use them plainly for ease of description, not for hatred reasons. And in fact, I think the love that was shown in this movie was really cool and I enjoyed not seeing the "standard" couple, the nuclear family per say.

The trailer for The Kids are All Right

I want to start out by saying that after finishing this movie I did not feel connected with it and actually I did not like the ending at all. In fact, I would consider the ending to this movie to be the weakest part of the entire film. See, where the first half of the movie does a wonderful job of setting up the characters and the second half gives them finally a conflict to be resolved, the final part of the film never actually resolves the conflict. Instead, you are left with this open-ended ending that was so loosely tied together that I felt it ruined the whole film. That is not to say that I feel films need to have closed endings, where everything is put to rest, but more so that the film should have an ending where the conflict is actually resolved. For instance, the ending to Almost Famous is very much open, but the main conflict has been resolved. This movie lacked that, the conflict was left thrown to the side and the ending was left open and I disliked it.

With that said, this was not a terrible film. I think where this film shined best was in the first half, which is where the characters are really being made and built-up. You learn about the two lesbian mothers and their relationship, how even they seem to have problems with their marriage but they work it out. You learn about the daughter, how she is this innocent girl that needs to be unleashed upon the world but is not sure how. And you see the son, a wildcard of the characters with all the classic makings of being the lackey for his douche of a friend. Oh yeah, and you get to see what type of character the sperm-donating father is. And all the while that they are giving you a look into these different people's lives and really letting you see and hear what is going on, they start turning the gears to have the family and the dad meet up. It was brilliant, well done, and overall the first part was a masterpiece of bringing together the rest.

But that was when the movie sort of peaked out and then just stopped developing them. It was like the writer lost track of what was being written, trying to come up with some sort of conflict that should happen between the two world but without the actual conflict. Why? Because the Dad was a great guy and he gets along with everyone, so why should he be shut out of their lives. Similarly, the lesbians seem to click with him and the children of course would click with their biological parent. So that is where the film sort of flat-lines for the center, lost in a sea of undeveloped plot as none of the characters advance and there is nothing new to say. So the writer introduces a new problem, one that will cause problems for all the characters. I am okay with this style of writing, but the thing that bugged me was at this point they decided to also change the father's character. He went from being this hip and cool, very nice father to being a total outcast from the family. Everything he does, including the smirks and smiles, suddenly become just not like him as he tries to develop something that anyone would have seen would not work. So I felt that he fell out of character. Then one of the lesbians falls out of character completely to push the problem they create forward, which pulls her wife into the problem and ultimately the kids fall out of character as well to meet this problem. Like I said, I did not like this ending.

Anyway, I sort of digress because I am so held up on how terribly wrong this movie goes about half way through. Truly it is a sad fate, because the acting was amazing and the beginning was great, but they should have pushed a more realistic problem to make me connect more. And I would have liked an ending that did not feel so loose with how unsolved the problem was. So I cannot fully recommend this movie. To those that are looking for a drama and are drama-lovers, you should watch this.

Update on my Thoughts
After speaking with a friend about what this movie might have meant, she said that the conclusion she got was the following (with some corrections to what she wrote me):

The ending kind of fit thought, in a way. Because that is family drama and all that. It does not make sense, but does it have to? I mean, what really makes a family and all? And it was basically that yeah, he was a nice enough guy, but he was not their real family. And when he started leading to the destruction of their family they kind of cast him out to save their family or something. I do not know for sure, but at the very least it was interesting. 

I think my friend's perspective might be right on what she thought about this movie, that it is about him coming into a family that he is not part of, but here is my take on the entire movie. First of all, I still felt that the characters developed in the first half did not act like they should in the second half. So I still felt the second half of the movie was a complete change of pace for all the characters, all of them acting wrongly and inaccurately.

But if I accept what was put on film, then here is my problem with her idea. Those children are half his DNA, half his thoughts and structure and everything else that makes-up a person. So the true fear that those children should be thinking about is they will become him in some form or another. As my biology teacher in high school said to me, "It is scary getting old, because you realize that you are more like your parents then you ever thought before." So even if he is not a part of their family, not connected to any of them in any memorable way, he is still biologically attached to them and they should embrace him as their father. But I think that is a hard topic for Hollywood to really understand, where as the much easier one is that he was never really a part of their family. I still say maybe watch this movie if you want to see a drama with interesting characters.

The Spotted Canvas uses the Kids are All Right promotional media but is not endorsed or certified by NBC Universal, Inc. All of the Kids are All Right logos and trademarks displayed on this website are the property of NBC Universal, Inc.