DVD Review : The Kids Are All Right

I watched "The Kids Are All Right" over the weekend. I've had it in from Netflix since February at least. Oops.

Short and Sweet : Some day I would like to watch a movie about lesbians where a lesbian does not have sex with a man. I don't know what it is about Hollywood movies that just can't seem to let a lesbian sleep with women (I'm looking at you, Chasing Amy).

Nic and Jules have two children, Joni and Laser, that they had via sperm bank. When Joni turns 18, she's able to make contact with the sperm donor, Paul. And hijinks ensue, of course. Nic resents the way that everyone takes to Paul and lets him into the family and starts to feel like she's being replaced. Jules has been feeling distant from Nic, and she enters into an affair with Paul so that she can "feel appreciated." What.

Best Scene : Nic and Jules watch gay male porn and Laser and his douchebag friend find a DVD of it when they're searching his moms' room for pot; they watch it and Jules catches them, leading Nic and Jules to think that Laser is gay. The subsequent conversation between Nic, Jules, and Laser was one of the funnier moments in the movie.

Family Values : The one thing that had me thinking were the family values in the movie; not so much between the lesbian parents, who had raised two healthy, functional members of society, but why the kids were so eager to have Paul around and hang out with him after the initial meeting. Maybe people are naturally curious about their roots and their family, but in my opinion they were very eager to bring a person into their family who previously hadn't known they existed, and it wasn't because their moms neglected them. Nic was the most real character, in that respect -- she felt that he was usurping her authority with her kids (for example, he gave Joni a ride home on his motorcycle when he knew she didn't want the kids on motorcycles) and who was he, anyway? An anonymous sperm donor versus the woman who raised the kids for eighteen years?

But then I remembered it was just a movie.