Movie: The Kids Are All Right, 2010. (no, they aren't)

I love movies.  I love to see the latest social commentary on the current state of our perception of reality.  It is always a stunning insight into our collective mind.  The Kids Are All Right is such a film of attempted introspection, -which is better than no attempt.  Well-made in terms of craft and aesthetic execution, it portrays a family struggling with the politically-correct circumstance of a same-sex, married, female couple who have given birth to two children (ages 15 and 18 in the movie) by means of artificial insemination compliments of... Enter: groovy sperm donor.  Well, shucks, need I say more? I mean, haven't we all seen this scenario a million times?  If I had a nickle for every... No, wait, that was The Switch, which is just yet another movie of mistaken sperm donor identity in which the biological mother and  father end up getting married and all is well that ends well bla, bla, bla.  No...I guess The Kids Are All Right really is unique, because although, of course, one of the two homosexual, biological mothers succumbs to a wild heterosexual escapade with the biological father, this adulteress is eventually discovered in her infidelity of cheating on her wife with the father of her son. It really just plays out as usual from there. Subsequently, she comes to her senses, and the biological father is discarded from all future contact as the horrible, morally depraved, perverted individual he is.  I mean "What type of guy donates sperm?" (Nevermind what type of women use sperm from an anonymous donor to have a baby.....that is completely different.  Isn't that obvious?)  Of course the solution is to vilify the male who participated in this consensual affair, forbid his further involvement with his biological children, teach them that their dad will not be forgiven for the same behavior for which they forgave their mom, and, oh, create an excellent opportunity for this movie to label all fathers nothing more than sperm donors who are behaviorally equal, yet morally inferior by virtue of gender, or something like that, -in other words, affirm the cultural nirvana of feminist bio-socio-autonomy. Oh, and the kids, you ask?  Why do they have to miss out on the clearly demonstrated benefits of an involved, albeit imperfect, biological father who openly admits his mistakes? As far as their mothers are concerned, that's their problem, and ours.

The film does a good job of showing some very contructive and honest family communication dynamics and the process of recognizing and establishing appropriate boundaries inside and outside of marriage and within the parent-child interactions through the transitions from adolescence into the teenage and early adulthood.  The sperm donor's sexual relationships all exist outside of marriage, without responsibilities or commitments, yet it is this very "liberty" that allows him to be objectified and discarded twice in the movie, once as a donor, and a second time as a romp for an unavailable lesbian to work out her relationship issues. In both instances he allows himself to be exploited for his sexuality only to have his humanity taken for granted.  It is obvious that he has not yet learned this lesson since he treats his girlfriend in the film with the same disregard he has treated his seed and the same fashion in which the lesbian couple has treated him.

What have the kids learned? That it is OK to use others as long as "we" are OK.  While the film takes some steps to be sensitive to those within our family, there is little consideration of our responsibility for how we impact others outside our family and how those people play vital roles in our lives.