The Kids Are All Right, the Pursuits of Happiness, and the Spaces Between

The Kids Are All Right (US, 2010) is Lisa Cholodenko's most commercial film to date and has been the most divisive in its reception. Pitched as a film of and for the times, the film has been celebrated for its portrayal of a lesbian family unit and taken to task for its homonormativity. In this article, the author argues that analyzing both the various kinds of crossovers that The Kids Are All Right engages at a thematic level and the form of crossover that the film itself undertakes in its perceived intervention into American film culture provides a way of understanding the film's polarized reception. The author argues that the film occupies an in-between space as a result of its movements between different genres, audiences, and agendas. Reading The Kids Are All Right in relation to Cholodenko's previous films, the author examines how it tracks, explores, and is marked by the spaces between different sexual, social, and cinematic worlds and the movements or cross-overs between those worlds.