Monday 25 April 2011

Film Review : The Kids are Alright

Now yesterday I got a call from Mrs T (the wife, not the chronicler of the adventures of Mike Freer). She was in blockbusters video store selecting a DVD for our enjoyment. She says "Do you fancy watching The Kids are Alright". I'd never heard of the film, but I know it is a cracking track by the Who, also brilliantly covered by Eddie and the Hot Rods - it sounded highly promising. "Whats it about?" I asked. She replied "A lesbian family relationship". Well the concept of watching Lesbian relationships to the sound of the Who and Eddie and the Hot Rods worked for me. "Yup, I'll watch that".

So anyway, late last evening, we cracked open a nice bottle of wine and settled down to watch the film. Sadly it didn't live up to my high expectations. Firstly, no soundtrack by the Who or even better Eddie and the Hot Rods. The film was about a "normal lesbian couple with teenage kids". So did it enlighten me as to how such a relationship might work? Well, I've got to say that if Hollywood has accurately portrayed such a family, they seemed, erm rather strange. Firstly, I didn't realise that Lesbians get off on watching gay blokes make out in porn films. Now, maybe they do, I don't know I've never asked any, but the depiction of "real lesbian sex" seemed shall we say, a touch joyless. Anyway help was at hand, because in rode Paul on his bike, the hunky sperm donor, who ran a wholefood restaurant. Now whilst there was absolutely no sexual chemistry between the two main lesbian characters, it instantly crackled between mum no 1 and Paul. In fact she couldn't wait for a "proper seeing to", which she clearly thoroughly enjoyed and repeated at every available opportunity. Of course, being a lesbian she was also evil, so she sacked the poor old bloke who was helping her do up Paul's garden, because he found it rather amusing that she was skiving off for a shag.

Then there was the teenage kids. Now unlike most teenage siblings, they got on great and didn't spend all their time trying to wind up, humiliate or kill each other. The boy had a dodgy mate, who in his search for some Pot to smoke, found the lesbian mums vibrator and gay porn, which he proceeded to watch with the straight son. Now even though the boys seemed disgusted with it, they watched it long enough to get caught by the mums. Anyway, as the friend was clearly a bad influence, the director had to show that he was truly evil, so there was a nice scene where the son is petting a stray dog and he decides to urinate on it. Was this because he was a pot smoker? Anyway that was the end of the boys bad influence.

And then finally the adulterous lesbian mum gets caught by her wife. How? Well they all go round to Pauls and lesbian mum no 2 decides to look in the plughole of Pauls bath and finds some of her hair (strange people these lesbian mums). She instantly figures out that her wife has been having an affair. Big rows ensue, Paul gets told to piss off and the two lesbian mums can get back to their joyless sex and gay porn.

As with many Hollywood films which tackle what they feel to be "tricky subjects", it really couldn't have been worse. There was a scene where the son asks why the two mums need to watch gay porn to get off - "because lesbian porn is usually two straight women pretending" - said without irony, given that the film featured two straight actresses pretending. Then there was the myth they were seeking to dispel that all a lesbian needs is a good shag from a bloke to turn them straight. I defy anyone to say that the respective displays of affection gave this message. Then there was the kids. The son was quite homophobic and the daughter was a complete wet blanket. When push came to shove, the whole family pulled together and excluded Paul, who skulked off into the night. Sadly though, it really didn't answer any of the questions it posed. Let's just hope that they don't feel the need to make "The Kids are Alright 2" to answer them.

My advice to you, don't bother. By the way , I just read the Wiki review and it's a comedy (all of the comedy I saw was purely unintentional) and it won a golden globe for best film - lord help us.

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