The Kids are All Right

Colleen's Thoughts:
This was a fine-mediocre film with some outstanding lead perfomances. Coming out of the film one of the empolyees working at the theater said that he and others did not enjoy Annette Benning's perfomance. I however, think this is ludicrous. I think those people mainly just saw her as a beezy and did not see that she was actually "acting" that way and an "act"or. I thought she was great in the film.
While it is refreshing to see a movie about a committed lesbian relationship (most films with gay couples I have seen are with two men). I worry a little bit about the message of what this film is telling us is "all right." I am happy to see that people are finally coming around to believeing that two people of the same sex can raise a family just as adequately as two parents of different sexes. However, I think it is interesting that even with a queer couple at the center of the film, traditional family power dynamics seem to remain intact. Nic, Annette Benning's character, clearly the more "masculine" of the couple, seems to be the head of the household. She is logical and brings home the bacon. Julianne Moore (who also gave a stunning performance) was the "feminine" one; she was sensitive, artsy and let's face it didn't know what the hell she was doing career wise tee hee. I worry that for us to be ok with "alternative" family lifestyles they have to quite clearly mirror stereotypical heterosexual relationships. And whose to say that traditional heterosexual relationships have made kids "all right?"
Back to the more concrete of this film, I thought it was an interesting enough screenplay with a few slags. Drew was laughing his ass off when Nic said "If I hear one more person mention heirloom tomatoes.." However, it wasn't really refreshing to hear that just like for straight couples, gay married life sucks the life out of you. I believe Jules likened it to "slogging through the shit." When your relationship is likened to that, I would say get the hell out.