Kids Are All Right, The : Movie Review


Filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko can only hope that her lesbian-marriage comedy "The Kids Are All Right" can attract the degree of attention and animosity from the family-values right that it has already attracted from certain quarters of the lesbian and gay community. When I wrote two pieces about the film from Sundance in January, the feedback from Salon readers -- an unscientific sample, I grant you -- was strident and at least partly hostile.

By making a movie in which a pair of married lesbians are played by well-known hetero actresses Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, and in which one partner (Jules, played by Moore) has an affair with a straight man, Cholodenko and co-writer Stuart Blumberg capitulate -- in some people's view -- to a whole set of "Celluloid Closet"-type homophobic stereotypes, and possibly lend aid and comfort to the right-wing view of homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice." Furthermore, Cholodenko doesn't seem terribly concerned about it. Before our Sundance interview, I read her a few examples from the first wave of critical comments and she laughed them off: "Maybe those people need to take their pink megaphone somewhere else."

See www.salon.com for full review

Author : Andrew O'Hehir