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88Moore and Bening are superb actors here, evoking a marriage of more than 20 years, and all of its shadings and secrets, idealism and compromise.
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88Cholodenko, whose previous features include the pretentious "High Art" and the sudsy "Laurel Canyon," pitches The Kids Are All Right at right level - there's enough light comedy to leaven the melodrama and keep it from becoming overbearing.
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75Ruefully funny, beautifully acted comedy of manners.
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88The actors are to die for. Bening and Moore nail every nuance of a relationship going adrift. And Ruffalo is dynamite as a man keeping himself at a distance. Kids makes its own special magic. It's irresistible
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100Like her (Cholodenko) other movies, this one has vivid characters and strong performances and flows like a slice of life set in an appealing, interesting world. But this one also has a good story and, if you're paying attention, a distinct point of view.
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100Every scene has its highlights, from amusing observations about sex to poignant truths about parenting and partnerships. But what you'll remember most is the exquisitely lovely final scene, in which Cholodenko reminds us that all we need is a single moment of perfection -in a family, or even in a film - to believe that somehow, things will always be all right.
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100This warm, funny, sexy, smart movie erases the boundaries between specialized ''gay content'' and universal ''family content'' with such sneaky authority.
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100Movies like The Kids Are All Right -- beautifully written, impeccably played, funny and randy and true -- don't come along very often.
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100A thrillingly funny and casually profound film.
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89The Kids are All Right, a grin-cracking great portrait of a modern American family in minor and then major crises.
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88This gem features five topnotch, multidimensional performances in one of this summer's most engaging films.
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100Though The Kids Are All Right sometimes smacks of political correctness, Cholodenko succeeds brilliantly in making her little clan seem completely run-of-the-mill.
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75I spent The Kids are All Right wondering whether director Lisa Cholodenko was affectionate toward her self-absorbed characters or gently mocking them. In the end, I thought she was both and liked the film more.
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83Positioned somewhere between sitcom and piercing human drama, The Kids Are All Right, is both overtly familiar and cutting edge.
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100It is outrageously funny without ever exaggerating for comic effect, and heartbreaking with only minimal melodramatic embellishment.
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50Cholodenko casts much better than she writes. Yet, alas, even a talented veteran like Moore can't sell a hoary line like, "Sometimes you hurt the ones you love the most." Maybe if she'd set it to music – nope, sorry, that's already been done.
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100"All right" doesn't begin to describe it. The Kids Are All Right is wonderful. Here is a film that respects and enjoys all of its characters, the give-and-take and recklessness and wisdom of any functioning family unit, conventional or un-.
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88Here are five gifted actors at the top of their games as five characters in search of what makes a family.
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90The Kids Are All Right ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.
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75Arrives as the perfect midsummer movie, a comedy about a flawed-but-functional family that, like "Toy Story 3," captures the drama of growth and separation in all its exhilaration and heartache.
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70Serious comedy, powered by an enthusiastic cast and full of good-natured innuendo, Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right gives adolescent coming-of-age and the battle of the sexes a unique twist.
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91Cholodenko's casually observant style perfectly matches the cast's thoughtful work, though the film ultimately proves more successful at creating messy situations than trying to resolve them.
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100The self-satire of The Kids Are All Right is so knowing, so rich, so hilarious, so damn healthy that it blows all thoughts of degeneracy out of your head.
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40There are not only glancing moments but whole sequences in this movie when the agony of social embarrassment makes you want to haul the characters to their feet and slap them in the chops.
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75A thoroughly and unmistakably modern film so rooted in the now that it's bound to be remembered as a cinematic landmark.
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60Never quite shakes its sitcom-ish setup. The director alternates incident-laden storytelling with penetrating character moments that her terrific cast acts to the fullest.
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88That humor is a the delicious underpinning to whatever melodrama happens as these five connect and clash. And that humor is what reassures us, even at its darkest moments, that no matter how things work out for the adults, these kids are going to be all right.
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100Witty, urbane and thoroughly entertaining.
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75What makes Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right remarkable also makes it a tad humdrum, which may be the filmmaker's point.
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75Some people might blindly and inaccurately accuse this movie of attacking family values, but it has exactly the opposite effect. Touching and funny in their upheaval, the people in The Kids Are All Right open the door to a brand new examination of family values that leaves you charged and cheering.
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95More universal than it is alternative, except in one sense: There's nothing else on the contemporary movie landscape like it.
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100The Kids Are All Right probably could have used a few more scenes to come to an even more satisfying conclusion. But it's a terrific film anyway.
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90It's a classic Hollywood domestic comedy with a mischievous twist.
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80A witty, warm exploration of family life that's conventional and unconventional in equal measure.
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70Sparked by wonderfully lived-in performances from Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right is alright, if not up to the level of writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's earlier pair of new bohemian dramas, "High Art" and "Laurel Canyon."
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100The movie we've been waiting for all year: a comedy that doesn't take cheap shots, a drama that doesn't manipulate, a movie of ideas that doesn't preach. It's a rich, layered, juicy film, with quiet revelations punctuated by big laughs.
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60The soul of the movie is Mia Wasikowska, a radiant young actress who captures with quiet precision the quandary of a bookish "good girl" suddenly roused to wider personal and experiential possibilities, and to their potential cost.
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80Mark Ruffalo, in just the right amount of stubble, grease and leather, plays Paul, about as cool an instant dad as a SoCal kid named Laser could hope for.
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This love letter to gay-marriage supporters is respectably entertaining filmmaking, it's just not exceptional.