Recasting 2010: "The Kids Are All Right"

Another easy choice. The role of Nicole "Nic" Allgood in Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right offers the opportunity for an interesting and difficult portrayal. I watched the film again recently, and liked it more than I remember I had in my first one or two viewings. From the start, I couldn't help but compare the setting to the movie Meryl actually shot around the same time this movie filmed, It's Complicated. It's a bit of lifestyle porn, watching folks in sunny southern California spending their days in a beautiful garden and their evenings sipping Petite Sirah over salmon and steak. I didn't realize just how many scenes in The Kids Are All Right include eating and drinking. I enjoy that. 

Nic and Jules are a lesbian couple, the parents of Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson). Joni has recently turned eighteen, and Laser pressures her to get in contact with their biological father, whose donated sperm their parents used from a cryobank. They end up connecting with their donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), and the "non-traditional" family begins to merge their lives in certain ways, to varying levels of comfort for all involved. 

Nic is the family's breadwinner, an OB/GYN who "likes her wine" and is a bit of a control freak. She's very wary of Paul and his presence at first, threatened by his more relaxed attitude and influence on the kids. Bening does such and amazing job in this role. She's a woman thrust into the position of having to fear the loss of her family. She wants to be supportive of her kids' interest in identifying their biological father, yet you can see she's upset by the apple cart sort of being shaken up on her micromanaged little unit. Add to the fact that, just when she starts to like him, Paul sleeps with her wife, and we get a minefield of new emotions layering her already complex character. 

I think there would be a unique feeling of betrayal if one member in a same-sex marriage happened to cheat with someone of the opposite sex--especially if both in the marriage profess themselves to be gay. One would think it shouldn't matter much. Cheating is cheating, right? And sexuality is on a spectrum, right? But there's already a huge hurdle to jump in the mere fact of feeling safe in and having your same-sex relationship validated. If you're the one being cheated on, like Nic in this situation, I expect you'd have to feel doubly isolated when considering the natural question, as Nic voices to Jules after discovering her infidelity, "Are you straight now?"

I have to include this brief scene as well because I just think it's funny.

I wish I could've found a clip with the part right before this where Laser asks his moms why they watch "gay man porn." Their reactions and attempts at explaining are just so funny and awkward, despite their best efforts to simply be transparent and honest in response to their son's perfectly natural question. Jules's reply that they often hire straight actresses in lesbian porn is a bit ironic, considering both Moore and Bening are indeed straight, portraying a gay couple. No doubt that would be met with a lot of online shouting were the film to be cast today.

This film was a an enormous critical success. It holds a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 86 on Metacritic. For its tiny budge of only $4 million, it raked in over $34 million worldwide. I have to expect that had Meryl been cast, it may have cost a tad more, but also grossed more. She was a hot commodity (and continues to be) the few years after The Devil Wears Prada and Mamma Mia! Bening was widely praised for her performance as well, winning the Golden Globe for Actress in a Musical or Comedy (which the film incidentally won as well). She also scored nominations for SAG, BAFTA and Oscar, losing all three to Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Portman's sweep of the televised awards and many of the top critics awards was one of the most dominant we've seen by a leading actress. Bening's had some amazing performances over the years, but has come up against others that are almost undeniable winners from the start. Maybe she'll have her due in a couple years when she channels marathon swimmer Diana Nyad in the upcoming biopic, Nyad.