The Kids Are Alright gets kudos for lesbian portrayal

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore were cheered to the rafters yesterday at the European premiere of The Kids Are Alright, in which they play a lesbian couple whose long and happy marriage faces new disruption.

The comedy, screening at the 60th Berlin Film Festival, which closes on Sunday, has been enthusiastically received as a rare portrayal of a stable lesbian relationship where the sexuality of the protagonists is not the point of the film.
 
The Kids Are Alright follows lesbian couple Nic and Jules, married for almost two decades, when their children decide to trace their sperm-donor father. The father, an organic farmer and ladies man played by Mark Ruffalo, enters the life of the family in a big way, threatening to disrupt its stability.

On the red carpet before the screening, Moore told reporters: "I don't think it matters what your sexuality is. I think all families are the same that way. For me the movie is very much a portrait of a marriage and a family and about what it's like to be married for a long time and have children."

Lisa Cholodenko's third film as director, The Kids Are Alright premiered at the Sundance film festival in January this year, though only just: it appeared in the schedule as "Surprise Premiere 2" in case it was not completed in time to be shown. But, after the last-minute editing was finished, the film received a rapturous reception from the Sundance audience.

However, there are concerns that its explicit sex scenes, both gay and straight, and its urbane humour might be a stumbling block to wide commercial success: will it play in Peoria?

If any of Cholodenko's films has stood a chance of going down well in the multiplexes, though, this is the one. It's the most conventional and accessible film she has yet made, and is being optimistically compared to Little Miss Sunshine - an indie that made the leap to the mainstream in 2006 and with which it shares a sales agent, Cinetic Media. Like Little Miss Sunshine, The Kids Are Alright applies an indie sensibility to a traditional genre, in this case domestic comedy.

The two red-haired stars are near-contemporaries: Bening is 51; Moore 49. In fact, in her last role, as Diedre Burroughs in 2006's Running with Scissors, Bening replaced Moore at the last minute. Both are married: Bening has been the spouse of Warren Beatty since 1992, while Moore married director Bart Freundlich in 2003.

The Kids Are Alright is not competing at Berlin, where the 20-film main selection has this year been unremittingly grim, with paranoia, suspense, fear, war and social realism suffusing stories.

Frontrunners for the Golden Bear award, to be handed out at a gala on Sunday, include Iranian Rafi Pitts's Shekarchi (The Hunter), about a man who kills two policemen in revenge for the death of his wife and daughter, killed after police open fire on a demonstration.

Also hotly tipped is Russian director Alexei Popgrebsky's Kak Ya Provel Etim Letom (How I Ended This Summer) about two polar explorers isolated on a deserted Russian Arctic island. ·