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- Features
The Journey To Forming a Family
The Making of The Kids Are All Right
The Writer's Process
Feature Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Lisa Cholodenko
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Directors
Lisa Cholodenko
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Producers
Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
Gary Gilbert
Daniela Taplin-Lundberg
Celine Rattray
Jordan Horowitz
Philippe Hellmann
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Composers (Music Score)
Carter Burwell
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Co-Producers
Laura Rosenthal
Bergen Swanson
Todd J. Labarowski
Charles E. Bush Jr.
Joel Newton
Camille Moreau
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Editors
Jeffrey M. Werner
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Screen Writers
Lisa Cholodenko
Stuart Blumberg
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Others
Art Director - James Pearse Connelly
Casting - Laura Rosenthal
Casting - Liz Dean
Cinematographer - Igor Jadue-Lillo
Composer (Music Score) - Carter Burwell
Costume Designer - Mary Claire Hannan
Costumes Supervisor - Jacqueline Aronson
Department Head Hair - Cydney Cornell
Department Head Makeup - Valli O'Reilly
Department Head Makeup - Elaine Offers
Executive Producer - J. Todd Harris
Executive Producer - Riva Marker
Executive Producer - Steven Saxton
Executive Producer - Christy Scott Cashman
Executive Producer - Ron Stein
Executive Producer - Anne O'Shea
Executive Producer - Andrew Sawyer
Executive Producer - Neil Katz
First Assistant Director - Jesse Nye
Hair Styles - Jason "Orion" Green
Key Hairstylist - Daniel Curet
Key Hairstylist - Carl Bailey
Location Manager - Ned Shapiro
Makeup - Ronnie Specter
Musical Direction/Supervision - Liza Richardson
Post Production Supervisor - James Debbs
Production Coordinator - Mark Asaro
Production Designer - Julie Berghoff
Production Supervisor - Tracey Landon
Properties Master - Jeffrey M. O'Brien
Re-Recording Mixer - Frank Gaeta
Re-Recording Mixer - Elmo Weber
Re-Recording Mixer - Patrick Giuraudi
Script Supervisor - Rebecca Robertson-Szwaja
Second Assistant Director - Jasmine Marie Alhambra
Set Decorator - David Cook
Sound Editor - Joe Iemola
Sound Mixer - Jose Antonio Garcia
Sound/Sound Designer - Frank Gaeta
Sound/Sound Designer - Elmo Weber
Stunts Coordinator - Mark Norby
Unit Production Manager - Bergen Swanson
Lisa Cholodenko earned her indie cred with three films in six years that each focused on trials and tribulations specific to women. However, she's taken another six years to follow up her last movie, and the wait has been more than worth it.
The Kids Are All Right opens with a seemingly happy nontraditional family getting ready to send their oldest daughter off to college. Type-A controlling doctor Nic (
Annette Bening) and her free-wheeling wife, Jules (
Julianne Moore), have been together for over two decades. With the help of the same sperm donor, they each birthed a child, and raised both in a tight nuclear family. Joni (
Mia Wasikowska) is a straight-A student leaving in a few weeks for college, while 15-year-old Laser (
Josh Hutcherson) is drifting toward a slacker's life with the help of his obnoxious best friend. The foursome's surface contentment gets shaken after Joni, at Laser's urging, makes contact with the sperm donor, a free-spirited restaurateur named Paul (
Mark Ruffalo). Paul is smitten with the kids, meets "the moms" (as they're referred to by Joni and Laser), and eventually hires Jules to do some landscaping for him. As family dynamics shift due to Paul's influence, Nic begins to resent him, and when lustful cravings flare between Paul and Jules the entire family threatens to splinter.
Some films are about plot, but
The Kids Are All Right is about the characters.
Cholodenko gives each of the five main characters complexity and depth, and her refusal to make any of them an easy villain or hero makes the movie not only her best, but one of the best of the year. Nic and Jules each carry pain and recrimination that will be familiar to anybody in a long-term relationship, and
Bening and
Moore each subtly let those bad feelings rise to the surface. They are both alternately infuriating and sympathetic.
Ruffalo never loses sight of Paul's best instincts -- he is a quick read of other people and he has a strong work ethic -- but those talents go hand in hand with his emotional selfishness. Most of his scenes are with
Moore, and it's pretty special when two actors as talented and naturalistic as those two have material that allows them to explore human behavior rather than service a plot -- their characters' attraction to each other is awkward, intense, and thoroughly understandable.
The teen characters are just as multifaceted. Joni's first steps toward rebellion are both poignant and infuriating, and
Wasikowska has an uncommon knack for simultaneously frustrating us while making us care for her -- for a 20-year-old with such an uncommonly pretty face, she's capable of indicating a great deal of emotion behind those beautiful eyes.
Hutcherson turns what could easily be a standard-issue troubled teen into a specific person by making us see Laser's inherent goodness. He might not be sure enough of himself to share his feelings, but we never lose the sense that he'll do the right thing if only somebody shows him he can.
It's rare to see an ensemble this strong, and the credit should go to
Cholodenko and her co-screenwriter,
Stuart Blumberg. They infuse the characters with a real sense of history -- we feel like we've been right there along with Nic and Jules for their entire marriage. And while each of the actors has at least one show-stopping monologue, they're all so talented that these scenes never feel like actors showing off, but rather like real people having been forced to the point where they have to say something.
Lisa Cholodenko's
The Kids Are All Right stands alongside
Nicole Holofcener's
Please Give as two of the best films of the year, and while it's surely a coincidence that both would hit theaters in the months following
Kathryn Bigelow's Best Director Oscar win, it's hard to shake the sense that we're in a moment where independent-minded female filmmakers are giving audiences some of the most challenging and truthful films in America. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - British Academy of Film and Televisio, 2010
- Julianne Moore : Best Actress - British Academy of Film and Televisio, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Original Screenplay - British Academy of Film and Televisio, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Original Screenplay - British Academy of Film and Televisio, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Supporting Actor - British Academy of Film and Televisio, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy - Hollywood Foreign Press Association, 2010
- Julianne Moore : Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy - Hollywood Foreign Press Association, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Screenplay - Hollywood Foreign Press Association, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Screenplay - Hollywood Foreign Press Association, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Director - Independent Spirit Awards, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Female Lead - Independent Spirit Awards, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Screenplay - Independent Spirit Awards, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Screenplay - Independent Spirit Awards, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Supporting Male - Independent Spirit Awards, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - Runner-up - National Society of Film Critics, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - New York Film Critics Circle, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Screenplay - New York Film Critics Circle, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Screenplay - New York Film Critics Circle, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Supporting Actor - New York Film Critics Circle, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Ensemble - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Julianne Moore : Best Ensemble - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Ensemble - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Josh Hutcherson : Best Ensemble - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Mia Wasikowska : Best Ensemble - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Supporting Actor - Screen Actors Guild, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Original Screenplay - Writers Guild of America, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Original Screenplay - Writers Guild of America, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Original Screenplay - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Original Screenplay - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Jeffrey Levy-Hinte : Best Picture - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Gary Gilbert : Best Picture - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Celine Rattray : Best Picture - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Mark Ruffalo : Best Supporting Actor - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc, 2010
- Annette Bening : Best Actress - London Film Critics Association, 2010
- Lisa Cholodenko : Best Screenplay - London Film Critics Association, 2010
- Stuart Blumberg : Best Screenplay - London Film Critics Association, 2010
