It's very rare in pop culture today, where you can watch a film that is a drama and comedy, composed primarily out of performances with expressions and idiosyncrasies rather than endless diatribes and emotional outbursts drowning us in dialogue. With "The Kids are All Right," the reactions and undertones of sadness are there within every single character. And it's most important to ignore what they're saying, and pay close attention to what they aren't saying. Lisa Cholodenko's dramedy about the modern family, and the plight of the odd structure of said family is a sad and typically miserable film about worshipping the wrong people, and reaching for a goal that is unobtainable. Every individual in this piece are looking for something to fulfill their lives, and sadly they will have the most difficult time looking for it. Even when they're together and bonded as an odd unit of two lesbian moms, and a son and daughter composed from their experience with a sperm lab one fateful chapter in their lives. When their oldest daughter Joni, now on the verge of heading to college, calls their sperm donor, they discover that meeting him will probably be the biggest mistake of their lives. Or perhaps just what they needed all along. "The Kids Are All Right" is very much about the adjustment of roles in the modern familial construct while also observing the error of false idolatry in a world of youths looking for role models.

What starts as a chance meeting to garner some sense of identity, soon transforms in to Paul slowly but surely wedging his way in to this family's life. Through this we see how lesbian couple Nic and Jules essentially look down on Paul's carefree life, that switches once Paul is able to see loudly and clearly that these picturesque individuals who have created the perfect life, are utterly unhappy. What happens when a family foundation has been built and a new element is presented? Do kids really need a male role model in spite of their well upbringing? What "The Kids Are All Right" paints is a picture of five people who are unhappy with the lives they've convinced themselves is for them, and for better or for worse, they affect one another as an entire organism that could eventually prove to be damaging to the relationship of Nic and Jules. Annette Benning is particularly striking as militant matriarch Nic who despises Paul upon her first meeting with him and can't quite figure out why until she realizes he is gradually replacing her as the head of the family. Her struggles to maintain her importance and influence in Paul's rising control of the family is effective, all the while clinging to this false idea of perfection she'd kept closely before Paul changed their outlooks. In the end we're left with a family who has to re-assert their positions in life yet again that may be a wake up call to strike and make a change before they split apart.

Filled with sharp performances, and a stand out by Annette Benning, director Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" is a bittersweet family dramedy that challenges the perceptions of the perfect family, and how we can often trick ourselves in to believing we have it all and lose ourselves in comfort.