Unconventional relationships and complicated families are no strangers to dynamic filmmaking. The newest film from writer and director Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right, uses the familiar themes of relationships, marriage, and kids to create a comedic and also dramatic story that puts an interesting twist on the modern family. The basic premise of the film is of two lesbian moms, Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, respectively) who have raised two kids together and what unfolds when their youngest son Laser convinces his older sister Joni, who has just turned eighteen, to initialize contact with their birth father, the anonymous sperm donor their moms used in their conception. As the kids', and the moms', relationships grow with Paul, the donor, a new family dynamic is created, one that will ultimately result in a redefining of the relationships that they have always known.

I had the opportunity to meet up with Cholodenko recently and find out a little bit more about her background, her views on family and what it means, and what foundations are required to make marriages, especially ones with kids, last.

When asked about where her ideas for some of the scripts she's written, specifically this one, have come from, she unsurprisingly defers back to her experiences as a young undergrad in San Francisco. "Certainly moving to San Francisco when I was 18 and emerging here and kind of coming out... all that probably formed my worldview in some way. It was certainly here that I first started thinking about gay families. I left San Francisco when I was in my mid twenties but I already knew people that were starting to make families and have kids and that was something that stuck with me."

As far as containing any specific message about gay families in particular, Cholodenko says, "I think in a way its kind of a family values movie. I certainly don't advocate people staying in marriages that are horribly unhappy or contentious or stressful or stressful to the point where they have a negative impact on the kids.

"I wanted to in part make a film that was an accurate portrayal of what it takes to be in a long-term relationship and keep your family intact... and that it's complicated. In the end there's something really good and really strengthening in working through problems and crises and keeping your family intact so I'm a proponent of that."

There is, of course, a big discussion about family values in same-sex marriages and how the kids will end up turning out if they are brought up in them. The title of the film comes from a place that is a more or less subtle answer to that question. With its roots based in a documentary about the Who that essentially had the same name only spelled differently, the title is partly a nod to that film, if anyone remembers it or has even heard of it; and also, according to Cholodenko, "This really speaks to the bigger issue. The irony here is that the moms are the ones that are kind of coming unglued. The kids are fine."

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