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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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The Kids Are All Right
With the realization that I'd only seen four of the ten Academy Award Best Picture nominees, I'm been doing my best to try to see the remaining six films in recent weeks. Last week I saw two of them: Black Swan and The Kids Are All Right. Of the two, the latter is by far the better film. In fact, of the Best Picture nominees I've seen, it is my favorite.
Annette Benning and Julianne Moore play Nic and Jules Allgood, a married lesbian couple. Each of them had previously used the same sperm donor to conceive a child. The movie's plot is driven by these kids', Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson), desire to meet their biological father, Paul, played by Mark Ruffalo. Despite the complicated setup -- and it gets even more complicated as a love triangle develops between Nic, Jules, and Paul -- this is a story about marriage. And while I'm sure there are some right-wingers out there who would vehemently disagree given the context, it presents an overwhelmingly positive message about obstacles that couples sometimes have to overcome to make marriage work. But, lest you think this is particularly dark, all of this comes in the form of an outstanding comedy.
The Kids Are All Right has great actors giving great performances in great roles. It has humor. And it has something interesting, if perhaps not unique, to say.
★ ★ ★ ★
Posted by on 5 February 2011 at 11:20 PM
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