I've been thinking about the topic of “children” these last few months, when I came across the film “My Mothers and My Father”. There was no other way, I went to the cinema with my girlfriend-wife to see what director Lisa Cholodenko, an open lesbian and mother, had in store for us. Okay, I went to see the exuberant Julianne Moore in the gay role.
First surprise, I had never seen so many lesbian ladies gathered in one square, I mean, in a movie theater. At first, I thought all these almost-grandmothers were straight and unaware. But what was my surprise when I saw those mature women and gay men bursting out laughing at the unconventional dialogues.
The second good surprise, in addition to the beautiful performance of the two actresses, was the film itself, real, honest, open, sincere, which shows not only the delights, but mainly the pains of being part of a lesbian couple. The director showed the Achilles heel of marriage between women: the lack of care for desire and mutual admiration.
I say this because I have this tendency, sometimes I think that the person already knows that I love them, that I desire them, that I admire them, and they don't need to be like a parrot repeating what they say, after all, there are other problems to be discussed. But being a woman is not like that, like an HD, which records information and that's it, it is stored forever.
A woman needs to listen to be convinced. And you need to listen to each character about how you feel about her. Men don't care about the blablabla, the nhénhénhén, as long as you appear as a wife, are a good mother and don't cheat on him. But the relationship with a lesbian woman is somewhat different: it's not enough to do it, you also have to talk about it. And always talk.
I think that, in the film, the lack of expression about the desire between the couple, although they loved each other very much and wanted each other too, led Jules (Julianne Moore) to cheat on his wife Nic (Annette Bening) in such a frivolous way – a parenthesis: did it have to be with that sperm donor guy? Anyway.
But the lesson is simple and direct: lesbian marriage is a huge challenge, it's difficult, it's painful, with or without children. I didn't need to have them to identify myself in the story, because simply having them is not a problem in itself. As the original title of the film says, “The kids are all right”. The problem is adults or, in this case, adult women.
