Before I had an opportunity to see Lisa Cholodenko's latest film, The Kids Are All Right, I devoted a post to exploring the way all roads seemed to lead to Joni Mitchell: in the movie [the lesbian couple's daughter is named Joni, and Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo bond by singing "All I Want"], in Cholodenko's oeuvre, in her partner Wendy Melvoin's career. As David Hudson kindly observed, "Now this is a network of allusions and cross-references calling for further exploration."
Well, a week ago Sunday I caught a matinee and now have maybe not corrected so much as revised my initial theories. Yes, Mitchell and her ladycentric California canyon vibe are key to entering into the world that Nic [Bening] and Jules [Moore] have constructed with their children Laser and Joni. But once Mark Ruffalo's leather-clad, motorcycle- and pickup truck-driving, organic-farming restaurateur/sperm donor Paul comes into the picture the soundtrack shifts to a new paradigm and another quintessentially L.A. act: the band X. And even more specifically, More Fun in the New World, as much a secret history of the city as any of Mitchell's albums -- a punk pastiche of Los Angeles Plays Itself.
My notes scribbled in the dark say only "X. Makes sense." It must've been when Paul is listening to track one, side one, "The New World" ["twenty or thirty pounds of potatoes; twenty or thirty beers"], in the truck with Laser. The subsequent songs map out the narrative as it unfolds. Not perfectly, sure, but by the time the film neared its denouement apology scene, in which Jules announces, "Marriage is hard," it was settled. Who better to give that truth voice than the strangely harmonious exes of X, John Doe and Exene Cervenka?
Let's move to track two. PLEASE NOTE THAT SPOILERS FOLLOW.
"We're Having Much More Fun": The band beckons, "Leave your sister home and come with us." Laser, skeptical, spends time with his jackass friend Clay and his donor dad, looking for models of masculinity outside his gynotastic family.
"True Love": The title comes without modification here but will be revisited at the end of the album, battle-scarred and wiser for wear. We're about to learn that the loneliness in long-term relationships like Jules and Nic's can become the devil's crowbar.
"Poor Girl": Aimless "landscape architect" Jules is hired by Paul to lay out his backyard, so to speak. Her loneliness collides with the unsettling experience of seeing her son's expressions in Paul's face, and they fall into bed together.
"Make the Music Go Bang"/"Breathless": Jules and Paul agree that this can't happen again. It happens again. And again, Jules bossily directing him what to do to please her. "'You said hold me tight,' but I couldn't get it right," John Doe admits. Paul lacks Doe's perspicacity, as we shall see. [To my way of thinking, the fact that "Breathless" is a cover gets at the whole confusion/attraction and impossibility of this pairing because Jules is a lesbian.]
This betrayal takes the film and the album into a middle movement.
"I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts": Nic, never a fan of Paul's, decides it's time to make nice and arranges a family dinner at his house. The rivals bond over wine and Mitchell's Blue before Nic notices errant strands of red hair in his bathroom. The world goes subjectively quiet as she realizes what's been going on: "It's about time, it's about space, it's about some people in the strangest places."
"Devil Doll": It's Jules, for sure, but also Paul, as the family wagons circle and the silent treatment begins.
"Painting the Town Blue": There's that color again, as Joni deals with her other mother's betrayal with her donor dad by going to a party, getting trashed, and kissing her best male friend. "Roses are red, violence is, too. Everyone knows I'm painting the town blue."
"Hot House": Jules on the couch, Paul on the outs, "cinders on the sheets."
"Drunk in My Past"/"I See Red": Can Nic, fond of her wine, who let Jules down and wasn't around when needed, reconcile with Jules? Will Joni and Laser forgive her? Will they let Paul back in? Signs point to maybe: "I don't feel sad, then I see you, and I see red."
"True Love, Pt. 2": True love is a lot of things -- "1234567, all good children gonna go to heaven" -- and marriage is hard, but the kids are all right.
RELATED: The Globe's Wesley Morris and Drake Bennett call foul on Paul throwing over the hot hostess played by Yaya DaCosta without one last farewell fuck.
