First Hit: Very good performances but felt the story lacked something.
The basics are this; a gay marriage between Jules (played by Julianne Moore) and Nic (played by Annette Bening) is shaken when their daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska) makes contact with her and her brother Laser’s (played by Josh Hutcherson) sperm donor.
She does this at Laser’s insistence who, perhaps, feels like he’s missing something by not having a father. The donor in this case is Paul (played by Mark Ruffalo) who happens to live nearby, is a restaurant owner and a bit younger than the mothers.
What didn’t work for me in this film is I didn’t think Laser’s character was fleshed out enough to know why he wanted to meet the sperm donor. I didn't think that it was probable that the donor would live within a few miles of the kids. I didn’t quite think the aging differences of Jules, Nic and Paul worked well.
Nic seemed too old for Paul and Jules but the director tried to fix this by having a Joni Mitchell discussion at a dinner table. By having Nic and Paul get into a long discussion of Joni’s musical work tried to make them equal in age but it fell short for me.
I also didn’t like how we were left with nothing about what happens to Paul towards the end of the film. What did work about this film was Nic’s and Jules’ relationship, its ups and downs, and how they had gotten lost with each other. I thought Joni and Laser’s relationship with their mothers, each other and with Paul was effective and true.
A lot of the dialogue was really well developed and created effective scenes. I also liked Jules character a lot.
Moore was really good as the more female role of this couple. Her letting Bening know that she felt controlled was a good reflection of what happens in many relationships. Bening was very strong as the breadwinner and person who sets the tone of the family. Wasikowska was the real surprise for me. I thought she held her own with the two aforementioned actresses. She effectively portrayed a young woman who was just learning about her own boundaries and strengths as a human being. Hutcherson was good as the brooding younger brother and son. He was on target with his actions and reactions to the things going on around him. Ruffalo was good as the sperm donor dad. However, I’m not sure his character fit fully into the film. Was it important that he was a skirt chaser? Did he really make the transition to wanting a true partnership with Moore? However, this was probably more of poor story cohesiveness than Ruffalo’s acting ability. What was on the screen was well directed by Lisa Cholodenko, however she and Stuart Blumberg missed some important stuff in the writing, mostly with Ruffalo’s character.
Overall: This was a good film, there were some great funny and dramatic scenes but overall it didn’t quite hit the mark.