What do you get when you take two lesbian parents, add in their two inquisitive teenagers and stir in a cool dude sperm donor? You get the trailer to Lisa Cholodenko‘s new film The Kids Are All Right.
Part portrait of a marriage, part dysfunctional family comedy, the film has won rave reviews since debuting at Sundance. In the film Annette Bening (Nic) and Julianne Moore (Jules) play a long-time married couple who have two teenage children together. When the kids decide to look up their biological father, stuff gets complicated.
The trailer gives away one of the film’s larger plot points, the relationship between Julianne’s Jules and sperm daddy Mark Ruffalo‘s Paul. As disappointing as it is to see a “lesbian has an affair with a man”-storyline, I’ll stomach it because of Cholodenko’s track record. In movies like High Art and Laurel Canyon she has painted complex (if not always happy) portraits of relationships and sexual ambiguities. She also got Frances McDormand to make out with Kate Beckinsale, so in my book that makes her good people. We can only hope the same for Annette and Julianne.
Other things I learned from the trailer?
1. Never garden in a thong or something like this could happen.
2. It doesn’t matter if you are two cool lesbian moms, your kids don’t want to hear the details of how you first hooked up.
3. If you call Annette’s family “unconventional,” she will shoot daggers at you with her eyes.
4. Julianne in a tub should be mandatory in every movie.
So, what do you think? Like the trailer? Laugh riot or tear jerker? Or, possibly, both?
Does the trailer make you more excited, less excited to see if, indeed, The Kids Are All Right?
