The Kids Are All Right
The Kids Are All Right has been on a roll since its premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It is directed (and co-written) by Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon), a filmmaker who favors stories about characters who initiate change. Sometimes this change is intentional, other times inadvertent, but by the end the status quo is reshaped.
Here the status quo is a 21st-century family living a comfy life in California. There are two moms: Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), who have each had a child via the same anonymous sperm donor. Their 18-year-old daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska) is about to leave home for college, while their 15-year-old son Laser (Josh Hutcherson) struggles with issues of sexual identity caused in part by the all-female environment he has grown up in. To help him fill in some of the blanks, he persuades his older sister to contact the man whose sperm allowed this particular family to form. She's hesitant, but once her own curiosity gets the better of her, she makes the call.
The donor is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the laid-back owner of a small organic restaurant. He donated sperm, he says only half-jokingly, because it seemed like more fun than giving blood. At first he seems reticent to revisit that time of his life, but soon his own curiosity overwhelms him and he agrees to meet the siblings.
