Funny Picture

We watched THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, a drama about a family with two moms, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, whose daughter turns 18 and goes looking for her biological dad, played by Mark Ruffalo.

I didn't think I'd like this. The hook seemed a little too pat. But it's a really keenly observed movie. The characters are very carefully drawn. They are among the most real-feeling characters I've seen in a movie in a long time. Annette Bening does a brilliant job of playing an unsympathetic career woman. I came to hate her even though her crimes are just in the way she puts people down, judges them, and acts superior to them. And then she won back my sympathy. It's brave for an actress to play someone unlikable, and brave to give such an understated performance: another actor might have broadened her performance to make sure the audience got it. I thought she deserved an Oscar nomination for it, but it's the kind of non-flashy performance that rarely wins.

Kudos to writer-director Lisa Cholodenko, who also proved in her film HIGH ART that Ally Sheedy wasn't just a Brat Packer.