The Kids Are All Right

Editorial

Amazingly, no one has made a movie about a lesbian couple disturbed by their children bringing home the anonymous sperm donor they used. Such an achingly modern premise could instantly have exaggerated taboos or shock tactics, but Cholodenko and co-writer Stuart Blumberg refuse to sensationalise.

Dominant Bening and flighty Moore make for an expertly paired odd couple, and they have a lived-in bond with homespun Wasikowska and Hutcherson. But it's Ruffalo, as The Grooviest Zen Interloper Ever, who provides the tenable backbone to a robust, fluent and messy convergence of affected people.

Ruffalo's Paul is checked-shirt cooler than the retro soundtrack and hep aesthetics. He's a magnetic catalyst who irons out misgivings about some of the more dubious changes which crop up. When Bening prophetically does a rendition of Joni Mitchell, before Paul is stung by his own ill-considered actions, The Kids Are All Right demonstrates how to make an audience happily sad. More drama should leave us the same way.

Jude Allder