The Kids Are All Right...but What About the Parents?

I have a favourite person that I love to go to the movies with. She never talks to me during an important part of the film. She never asks me afterwards, What did you think? I never have to worry if she is hating the film and wants to leave. We are in perfect sync, always.

That person, is me.

When you visit the cinema on your own you are anonymous in the dark amongst a crowd of strangers; all entranced (or not as the case may be) by the flickering screen. It's not the same when you have someone you know sitting next to you. How can you escape and give yourself up to the movie when the person next to you knows your real name and perhaps what you had for lunch that day? I'm also one of those people that always worrys if the other person is enjoying themselves. That's why for me, cinema is a dish best sampled solo.

Rudimentary cliched cinema picture

Seeking a few hours escape amidst a very stressful week, I ducked in to see The Kids Are All Right recently. The film had been on my radar for several months. All the reviews I'd read had fallen over themselves in gushing praise. This coupled with the fact that it stars two of my favourite actors, Julianne Moore and Annette Bening was reason enough for me to sit back and relax in anticipation of the story ahead.

I emerged blinking into the daylight several hours later. Quite frankly I was relieved to not have to spend anymore time with the film, and by that I chiefly mean the two main female characters who I found annoying.  It's beyond my comprehension why the film has garnered the reviews it has. Is it because it would be seen as non PC to say that a film about a lesbian couple has very unsympathetic characters; one who exerts her control freakery through her family life while the other takes out her angst on whoever comes across her path through sleeping with them or firing them. Both actors fared much better in their other films about dysfunctional families -Bening in an American Beauty and Moore with Savage Grace, Far From Heaven and The Hours.  I thought the kids were all right in this film, but the parents, well, that's a whole other story.