GENRE: Drama
MADE: 2010
CAST: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson
DIRECTOR: Lisa Cholodenko
WRITER: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
PLOT: An untraditional family led by two mothers, lesbians, build a family with the insemination of a sperm donor. When the daughter turns 18 years of age she makes the decision to open their lives to the biological father. A story about relationships, an untraditional family and married life and all it's traditional problems.
PARALLEL UNIVERSE: The Savages,
Boys On The Side,
The Women
SCORE:
NOTE: I'm always up for a good story and I think the film's plot had a lot of potential to show something great, I definitely felt the film was lacking in this aspect. The film hovered somewhere between serious drama and comedy but never really took a stand on either side, this resulted in a feeling of over-all wishy-washiness that irked me through out the entire film, but this was the least of the film's problems. Along with the 'not quite here and not quite there' aspect of the film there was also an odd dynamic surrounding the characters. As much as I love the very talented Bening and Moore the dynamic between their two characters wasn't there, this can also be said for the son and the daughter. The son and daughter's relationship though obvious in the film wasn't affirmed as to what their actual relationship was like (ie. were they distant? were they close?) and went through no lengths to clarify this which I thought was important- once again this resulted in a break in the dynamics of the characters in the film. Over all, the film was a miss in almost every possible way with only the interest of the plot to lure the viewers on.
