Review by Combustible Celluloid

Many people are going to trumpet Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right as revolutionary in its frank depiction of a happy lesbian couple who have successfully raised two teenagers. Then you’ll hear others crying foul over the fact that one of the lesbian characters has a sexual affair with a man. But what’s truly remarkable about the film is that the writing is so strong, the performances so rich that none of this stuff actually matters. What matters is that viewers will be spending time with characters so vivid that they seem to live on past the edges of the movie.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a happy couple living in Los Angeles. They are a pretty typical opposites-attract mixture, with Nic an orderly, organized doctor and Jules an unfocused wanderer, whose latest venture is a landscaping service. Fortunately, the movie doesn’t concern itself with the “loose, happy” one imparting life lessons to the “uptight” one, as with most Hollywood movies. Rather, the focus is on more complex emotions. Teenage Laser (Josh Hutcherson) has become interested about the origin of his father (i.e. his sperm donor), who is also the father of the slightly older Joni (Mia Wasikowska). Laser is not yet eighteen, but Joni is and she’s about ready to leave for college at the end of the summer. Laser coaxes her into requesting a meeting with their “father.”

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Review by San Francisco Chronicle

Comedy-drama. Starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. (R. 104 minutes. At the Century 9, San Francisco.)

One of the best scenes of any film this year takes place in “The Kids Are All Right.” The setting is a small dinner party at which Annette Bening, as a lesbian with a longtime partner (Julianne Moore), seems on the verge of some kind of breakdown. She is talking nonstop. She is being excessively ingratiating. Every word out of her mouth suddenly sounds strangely inauthentic, and you wonder what’s happening to her. She’s wondering, too.

The scene resonates so well because it presents, with accuracy and subtlety, something that we’ve all experienced, but that is rarely depicted onscreen, and even then, almost never this well. It’s the phenomenon of knowing something without knowing it – without even knowing what it is that you know. Though not consciously registering what’s bothering her, this woman is picking up on a dynamic in the room, and with all her mental force and might – with every capacity she has for evasion and distraction – she is trying to keep that realization buried.

Review by New York Post

The perils of lesbian parenthood include the sudden ap pearance of the children’s sperm donor in “The Kids Are All Right,” Lisa Cholodenko’s ruefully funny, beautifully acted comedy of manners and unconventional celebration of gay marriage.

Nic (Annette Bening), a workaholic obstetrician, and her laid-back partner Jules (Julianne Moore) have raised an 18-year-old daughter named Joni — after singer Joni Mitchell, of course — and 15-year-old son unfortunately named Laser.

Their cozy life in Southern California is somewhat strained — by Nic’s fondness for chardonnay and the feeling by Jules, who has abandoned several stabs at a career, that Nic doesn’t appreciate her so much anymore.