Like Chloe, I love me a good romantic comedy. Unlike Chloe, though, I don’t usually analyze them. I watch them as an escape, as a distraction, as entertainment. Sometimes though there are movies that just require commentary. Usually it’s because the movie has some how moved into the realm of “actually about me” in some way. Remember my reaction to The Back Up Plan? As a Latina I couldn’t not comment on J. Lo’s whitewashing in that movie. And with The Kids Are All Right, the fact that it focused on a lesbian couple hit kind of close to home.
There has been quite a bit written about this film. The preview itself elicited a pretty big out cry from the queer blogosphere because it was made obvious that the main plot line of the movie is that Julianne Moore cheats on her wife of twenty years with a man, who happens to have been the sperm donor for the two kids. Sounds like a rom com set up no?
Folks were understandably upset because they felt like this, the first mainstream movie to feature a lesbian couple, had to fall into the “lesbian sleeps with man” trope. The idea being that all lesbians are just waiting for a man in their lives–you know, so they can have “real” sex. All that.
So I went into the film expecting the worst. Maybe that’s why I was pleasantly surprised, at least in the way this particular piece of the plot was handled.
Spoilers ahead!
The thing I liked best about the film was that it depicted, in what to me felt like an accurate and authentic way, how complicated modern relationships are. The film was a peak into the lives of a couple trying to make marriage work twenty years in, and all the complexities that arise with that task.
The depiction of the inner-workings of their long term relationship were stunning and complex. I complain frequently and loudly about how lousy most “relationship films” are, because they depict the chase. Couple is not together in the beginning of the movie, hijinx ensue, couple is together at the end of the movie. The End! Happily ever after!
For years I’ve been saying that it’s no wonder we have absolutely no idea how to be and behave and cherish and belong in long term relationships, given that the only depictions and models we ever have are the story before the committment. What happens after the commitment? What happens after the “I do” vows and the kids and twenty years later when things are getting, well, too comfortable? How do you reconcile if someone does something really stupid? How do you forgive? How do you keep loving someone for such a long time, at such close proximity? How do you go from being separate beings to that merging one-ness of connectedness and togetherness?
If Julianne Moore, after having sex with the donor, had decided she wasn’t really a lesbian and left her partner of twenty years for him, maybe I would feel differently. That would fall into the trap of the other films we’ve seen with lesbian main characters (like Chasing Amy and Kissing Jessica Stein). But Julianne Moore doesn’t do that–she stays, and she doesn’t renounce her gayness after a few rolls in the hay with a dude. Sexuality is complicated, as are relationships. I think The Kids Are All Right sends that message.
Now, if we talk about the depiction of race in the movie, this one fails us the way we might expect a rom com to. The only people of color (in extremely minor roles) are stereotypically displayed–the worst being the way Julianne Moore interacts with her Mexican Gardener. Colorlines has a spot-on take down of this aspect of the movie.
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5 Comments
Agreed…you’ve spoken about the movie in exactly the way I feel, namely that the relationship between Julies and Nic feels so real (all of it, prior to the discovery of the cheating,, just their every interaction). There are moments that I have heard myself or my partner saying the very same words.
I thought the movie also had an interesting look at how a boy raised by two women might be…how we see that he initiates meeting the sperm donor out of a sense of wanting to have a father, but he realizes that Paul is just as imperfect as everyone else in the world.
I think aLynn is right on the money here. Obviously, Jules didn’t think sex with Paul was as “real” as sex with Nic. When Paul suggested making something more permanent out of their time together, Jules objected right away, “I’m gay.” Most (not all, but most) of the gay women I know have tried straight sex a few times out of curiosity, even if they didn’t expect to like it. So how is Jules doing that “not gay-positive”, as many commenters have insisted?
To put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, I have long believed that if every teenage girl who ever had sex with another teenage girl grew up to be a lesbian, we straight guys would never be able to find anybody to go to bed with.
To answer Sinclair Sexsmith’s questions, you put the relationship first, find the best role models you can, and make it up as you go along. I know this is possible because my wife and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary a couple of weeks ago. If they were actual people instead of fictional characters, I’d bet Jules and Nic would someday, too.
It’s actually fascinating to me that I have yet to see a commercial that hints that there is any cheating involved in the movie. I had no idea until a few weeks ago when I read Autostraddle’s review of the movie. I certainly went to go see it, and loved it
The little tidbits that mostly people in the queer community understand were priceless (the Uh Huh Her poster in the background of one scene, the explanation of why the parents don’t watch “lesbian” porn and some great others). I loved it.
I do agree about the race card though. It was very white upper middle class, in general, certainly. I was interested in Tanya’s interaction with Joni’s friend Sasha, and the acknowlegment of Sasha’s assumptions about her (asking if she got a necklace from Africa, and then finding out she got it in Brooklyn, and therefore asking if she was from Brooklyn, and ultimately discovering that Tanya came from the same place she did…I thought that was great).
I didn’t catch from the trailer that it’s about cheating either. I was shocked when it happened in the film, I actually gasped
I wonder if it would be the same for a queer man. It seems to be many women’s deepest fear that their partner might stray or cheat on them with a member of the same sex. This is a fear compounded if a woman has ever dated a man who was in the closet at the time. I wonder if, God forbid, were that to happen to me if my partner would understand the complexities. I know many women who would assume that I was gay, not bisexual, and that the act of having sex with another man meant a complete rejection of them, and all women.