The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s endearing family drama, will be ten years old next July. That means ten years of Annette Bening singing Joni Mitchell at Mark Ruffalo’s dinner table, ten years of learning the word fecund, ten years of … wondering why the hell lesbian moms Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, respectively) named their son, played by Josh Hutcherson, Laser. Was it short for something? A nickname? A placeholder that just sort of stuck? Awkwardly, in the movie, Laser corrects his sperm-donor dad Mark Ruffalo. His name is Laser, never Lase.
At a screening of her new movie Gloria Bell, Vulture asked Moore about the name. Any idea where it came from? “A friend of Lisa Cholodenko had named their kid Laser,†she said. “There is a real Laser wandering around; he’s, like, in his early 20s.†Hopefully his Bumble profile capitalizes on this important cinematic legacy!