"The Kids Are All Right" a review:
Spoiler Alert!!!

My husband and I just returned from seeing the new movie, "The Kids Are All Right" starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. The plot is basically this:

A long married couple has 2 teenagers fathered from a sperm donor. The kids get curious about him, and initiate contact. He has no family, and soon is enjoying being apart of theirs. Soon he and the kids' mom have an affair, which the family finds out about. Here the plot thickens. Will Mom run off with him or return to her family? She decides to return to her family, full of remorse and begging for forgiveness and admitting her behavior was wrong. She gives an impassioned speech about how marriage is a marathon; it's not easy slogging through life with the same person. Marriage takes commitment and forgiveness. In the end, all is forgiven and the family is a happy unit once again.

Amazing to see a Hollywood movie preaching the sanctity of marriage and the importance of keeping vows, isn't it? Well, here's the rub. The married couple in the film are not man and wife, they are lesbians. Why did Hollywood feel it was important to make the couple lesbians and not straight? The answer, I believe, is Hollywood's agenda.

There are countless Hollywood films about married spouses having extra-marital affairs, finding themselves, being true to their bliss, or whatever. Rarely, if ever, does the wayward spouse return begging for forgiveness. So why show it now in this movie? I believe Hollywood feels the need to present gays/lesbians in the most positive light possible, and that includes showing them as ideal committed, loyal, forgiving, loving spouses, and not as flawed, selfish human beings, as all people are.

This movie would have been just as powerful if the main characters were straight. Here's how that plot summary would have worked:

A long married couple has 2 teenagers fathered from a sperm donor. The kids get curious about him, and initiate contact. He has no family, and soon is enjoying being apart of theirs. Soon he and the kids' dad have an affair, which the family finds out about. Here the plot thickens. Will Dad run off with him or return to his family? He decides to return to his family, full of remorse and begging for forgiveness and admitting his behavior was wrong. He gives an impassioned speech about how marriage is a marathon; it's not easy slogging through life with the same person. Marriage takes commitment and forgiveness. In the end, all is forgiven and the family is a happy unit once again.

But I believe Hollywood can't go there and here's why. Hollywood can't admit that people have a choice about gay/lesbian behavior; you're born that way. Period. To make a movie where Dad or Mom has a same sex fling, realizing it hurts the family, having remorse about it, and begging for forgiveness is inconceivable in Hollywood. People have to be able to find their bliss, especially if that means participating guilt-free in gay or lesbian activities.

I'm all for Hollywood making a picture which preaches the importance of marriage vows, commitment, love, and forgiveness. I just wish they'd use a heterosexual couple for the message, and not a gay/lesbian one. Hollywood seems to be full of "morality" when presenting homosexuality. I just wish they show it with heterosexuals, too.