We see a marriage based upon artificial insemination, penile prosthetics and butch/femme role-playing. We see a family where the kids want a father, the mothers are attracted to male bodies, and one of them has repeated sex with a man. In short, we see half-baked imitations of the real thing, with everyone yearning for the one element that can make them whole: the opposite sex, and not just more of the same.
Obviously, that wasn't the filmmakers' intention. They wanted to give us an arms-open portrait of an unconventional family, and send the Worthy Message that gay parents are the same as any other parents. I rather doubt that, and my skepticism is not allayed by the casting of two straight actresses in the lead roles. ("The inauthenticity"!). Casting actual lesbians would have been braver and more honest, but the results would have been too real for a mainstream audience, and the film's cozy message of equivalence would have been a tougher sell. In any case, by showing us a gay couple pretending to be straight, and straight actresses pretending to be gay, the film subverts its agenda at every turn.
And then there's Paul: really a nice guy, of boundless good will, yet Annette Bening accuses him of being an "interloper" in her family. No, her family are the interlopers in his life. Drawn to the warm glow of his testosterone, they seek him out, force themselves on him, use him as a sounding board, therapist and sex object--and then dump him. The film takes great care to reconcile the mothers and their brood, and it asks us to celebrate the survival of this matriarchy. But it doesn't ask us to shed a tear for Paul, whose emotional life has been thoroughly ravaged. Ah well, despite his good qualities, Paul is still a Man, and therefore the source of all evil in the world.
Obviously, that wasn't the filmmakers' intention. They wanted to give us an arms-open portrait of an unconventional family, and send the Worthy Message that gay parents are the same as any other parents. I rather doubt that, and my skepticism is not allayed by the casting of two straight actresses in the lead roles. ("The inauthenticity"!). Casting actual lesbians would have been braver and more honest, but the results would have been too real for a mainstream audience, and the film's cozy message of equivalence would have been a tougher sell. In any case, by showing us a gay couple pretending to be straight, and straight actresses pretending to be gay, the film subverts its agenda at every turn.
And then there's Paul: really a nice guy, of boundless good will, yet Annette Bening accuses him of being an "interloper" in her family. No, her family are the interlopers in his life. Drawn to the warm glow of his testosterone, they seek him out, force themselves on him, use him as a sounding board, therapist and sex object--and then dump him. The film takes great care to reconcile the mothers and their brood, and it asks us to celebrate the survival of this matriarchy. But it doesn't ask us to shed a tear for Paul, whose emotional life has been thoroughly ravaged. Ah well, despite his good qualities, Paul is still a Man, and therefore the source of all evil in the world.