Directed by Lisa Cholodenko Starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, Eddie Hassell, Yaya DaCosta 16 cert, gen release, 105 min

Modern family life gets examined in this funny and sombre film, writes Donald Clarke

IF YOU KNOW anything about Lisa Cholodenko’s critically acclaimed serious comedy you probably know that it stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a pair of lesbian moms.

Is this a normal family? It most certainly is not. Nic (Bening), an obstetrician, and Jules (Moore), an inveterate dabbler, live in that part of southern California where every sneaker is made from organic hemp and every window looks out over verdant fauna. You can’t pass a pumpkin without hearing somebody in German spectacles discussing the relative merits of Napa vintages.

It is no surprise that the film’s one unqualified villain – a pal to the women’s son – is a sweary jock with mainstream suburban values. This is not a normal environment at all.

The sameness of the parents’ gender is, however, barely worth commenting on. It would be facile to state that the film could work fluently with a differently sexed couple – incidentally, why would you wish such a change? – but the ancient familiarity of the traumas assailing the heroines offers disturbing news about the unshakable nature of couple dynamics. In short, Nic and Jules are useless in much the same way as any other middle-aged couple.

Things start to fall apart when Laser (Josh Hutcherson), the couple’s unfortunately named son, declares an interest in meeting the person who supplied his parents with sperm. Laser is still too young to demand the information, but his older sister Joni (Mia Wasikowska), who also sprang from the same seed, is happy to file the papers on his behalf. The donor turns out to be Paul, a slightly befuddled, proudly independent organic food supplier (what else?), played by the effortlessly charming Mark Ruffalo.

The couple’s reactions to Paul clarify their differing approaches to love, family and ageing. Jules is tolerant of his adolescent claims to be the sort of guy society just can’t tie down. Nic pours scorn on his pretentions and worries about his enthusiasm for motorbikes and creative disorder.

It gradually emerges that Nic, for all her elegantly tussled hair and grey linens, is becoming a crusty old doctor of the Half-moon Spectacles School. Meanwhile, Jules is gestating a spectacularly clumsy mid-life crisis.

Cholodenko, director of High Artand Laurel Canyon, extracts gorgeously nuanced performances from her two leads. The film involves a busy tussle between comedy and everyday tragedy as it charts the women's drift into different types of foolishness.

Moore, given the less tricky role, offers us a person always vulnerable to the quirks of her inner kook. Bening, who has been a bit chewy of late, is quite brilliant as a woman fighting against latent conservatism. The scene in which, having resigned herself to making an effort, she comes over all chummy to Paul is positively excruciating in its mock sincerity.

“I like this guy!” she says, using the voice parents employ when praising their three-year-olds’ finger paintings.

The director, whose earlier films were a bit smug in their modishness, also allows Nic to direct some gentle satire at the characters’ cosy, neo-hippie complacency. She suggests that if she hears “one more person go on about heirloom tomatoes” she will have some sort of meltdown. For all her crankiness and paranoia, Nic remains the sanest member of the adult contingent.

Mind you, as is often the case in real life, it is the children – still uncompromised by the hypocrisies life imposes on us all – who exhibit the coolest take on the galloping chaos. Shot beneath luminous skies in endlessly picturesque surroundings, The Kids Are All Rightis a funny film, but it offers sombre messages about the unavoidable messiness of family life.

Laser and Joni seem alternately baffled and appalled by their elders’ inability to reimpose discipline on their affairs. Get used to it, kids. There’s nothing more normal than chaos.