IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES. Directed by Charles Shyer; written by Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer; produced by Arlene Sellers and Alex Winitsky for Warner Bros. Starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long and Drew Barrymore. Rated PG.
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Lots of parents, unfortunately, must be like Albert (O'Neal) and Lucy (Long). You know, they'd have to take the 5th if you asked them, "Have you hugged your kid today?" Irreconcilable Differences is a movie about a sad subject, the neglect of a child. But its very witty script and good performances keep it from being a downer. And it stays away from over-sentimentality and cutsiness as well.
Ten-year-old Casey (Barrymore) has decided to divorce her parents (which is actually possible in California). They are both successful professional people. Her mom is an author and her dad a movie director. They look nice enough, at the beginning of the divorce trial. But through the flashbacks that accompany the testimony, we come to see them as anything but model parents.
They start out life together with Albert teaching film at UCLA and Lucy working on unpublished children's stories. But when Albert starts making movies instead of teaching about them, and becomes wildly successful at that, the marriage starts to go sour. And so does the caring relationship both parents have with Casey.
Finally divorced, their hostile feelings for each other and their neglect of Casey become too much for the little girl. She's always been happier with the housekeeper, so she decides to be with her permanently.
The story sounds horribly depressing. And to be sure, Albert and Lucy are both so self-centered and insensitive that you want to strangle them. But they're also very funny and they never quite completely lose our sympathy, or at least our understanding.
Long is the comic star of the show. Viewers of TV's "Cheers" won't be surprised at how she gets the most out of a good script. But she displays a greater range here, showing us frumpiness and nastiness as well.
O'Neal is convincing and attractive as the obsessive Albert. And he and Long click together nicely, in both the fights and the love scenes.
Barrymore is unfortunately saddled with some preachy and unnatural-sounding lines. But, except for her part, the script is terrific. It makes a best-selling novelist and a wunderkind movie director seem as real as your next-door neighbors. Plus it combines serious commentary on a serious topic with clever satire of both movies and marriage.
I especially liked the spoofs of movie cliches, both old (star discovered working at hot dog stand) and new (the self-indulgent director going way over budget waiting for the "perfect" sunset).
For the first third or so of the movie, the divorce trial seems almost superfluous. I kept thinking, Why didn't they just film the story of Lucy and Albert's relationship, and forget about the kid? But when things start getting rocky, the focus shifts to parenting. And the movie ends up making more sense than it looked like it was going to in the beginning.
In fact, it makes a lot of sense, and I gave my kids an extra hug when I got home from seeing it.
October 3, 1984