Review of The Kids Are All Right (2010) by Shiira — 21 Aug 2010

The seating arrangement at dinner time gives the moviegoer a pretty good indication as to why Laser(Josh Hutchinson) feels the urgent need to make contact with his sperm donor. The fifteen-year-old boy doesn't have the same status that he'd enjoy in a patriarchal family environment.

Outnumbered by women, three-to-one, the fifteen-year-old boy is seated at the farthest point from Nic(Annette Bening), the dad dressed in mom's clothing who occupies the chair, traditionally reserved for the "man of the house", at the head of the table.

Because he was sired by Jules(Julianne Moore), the weaker mom, Laser, hierarchically speaking, independent of chronological age, can't begin to compete with his sister Joni(Mia Wasnikowska), who, in this alternative family, is the stronger sex and originated from the stronger womb, the breadwinner's womb.

Judging by their names, it would seem that the moms favor girls, since the college-bound Joni was named after singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, while the boy got affixed with a gimmicky appellation which suggests that the moms were hard-pressed to name one man they revered enough to bestow their child with his reflected glory.

The matter of Laser being all right without a father, to me, lies at the heart of this film. Before dinner is served at Paul's house, Nic comes across a crate filled with the sperm donor's albums, which includes Mitchell's seminal album "Blue".

It's a telling moment, because the moviegoer can glean how the women, and perhaps, the filmmaker, perceive men. Vinyl, a format thought to be warmer than the compact disc, becomes the embodiment of women, while the CD, by default, comes to represent men, since it requires a LASER.

Women are analogue, and men are digital, but Laser, after years of being raised by two women, is vinyl, too. By the end of the film, sitting in the backseat as Jules drives, Laser realizes that he likes being analogue, being analogue is all right.