Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are Nic and Jules, a gay couple raising up two teenage kids in a perfect little urban family setting; Norman Rockwell for the twenty first century. But like a Norman Rockwell painting, the outward appearance is a little too perfect, not quite real. Nic and Jules’ relationship is rocky, cracks showing everywhere, in spite of their charming craftsman home with the Volvo wagon parked out front. These two are an odd couple, Nic a tough, self controlled doctor, who pesters the children to write timely thank you notes and drinks too much wine; Jules is a free spirit, experimenting with careers and enjoying the moment. “If it were up to Jules,” Nic quips as she pours another glass of red, “we would skip the thank you notes and just send out good vibes.” Hilarious, actually, and as the film gets going there is a lot of funny dialogue and scenes that make any parent – or any teen, or any former teen – cringe with comic recognition.
And the kids are all right, or anyway, we’ve all seen worse. The oldest, Joni, played with heartbreaking vulnerability by Mia Wasikowska, is spending her last summer at home before she heads off to some sort of prestige college. Brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson), still in high school, asks a favor of his eighteen year old sister: he wants her to contact their sperm donor dad. She’s reluctant – “That could really hurt moms’ feelings” – but she complies, and soon Paul (Mark Ruffalo) crashes into their lives, bringing an energy and unpredictability that immediately appeals to Jules and puts Nic entirely on the defensive. Paul owns a restaurant called WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get, in computer speak – and that is an apt description of him: he is bearded and brash and sweaty, a self described “doer”; but he is also charming and friendly, even when confronted by Nic’s disapproving barrage of questions. “You must be the griller in the family,” he tells her, amiably.
I liked the beginning of this movie a lot, but it lost me towards the end, when screen writers Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Bloomberg seemed to lose their senses of humor (Cholodenko also directed). The tone of the film becomes dark and tense, and the thought provoking premise just unravels; it’s like the writers had this great, timely idea for a story and then couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I left the theater feeling vaguely unsettled and a little bit cheated; I came to see a comedy about American families, and found myself watching a predictably sorry, sudsy tale. With excellent performances from the whole cast, although Bening, Moore and Ruffalo have shone brighter in other roles. Playing in very limited release, going wider on a slow rollout. B
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