Irreconcilable Differences (1984)

Memorable, crazy movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Ten year old Casey Brodsky (Drew Barrymore) seeks emancipation from her parents Albert (Ryan O'Neal) and Lucy (Shelley Long). Her divorced parents do not get along. The testimonies lead to recollections of earlier times. She reluctantly picks up hitchhiking Albert on a rainy night. She's marrying Bink but marries Albert instead. He's a UCLA film professor. Hollywood producer David Kessler (Sam Wanamaker) hires him and she becomes his writing partner. He directs a smash hit. He hires ingénue newcomer Blake Chandler (Sharon Stone) for his next movie leading to their divorce. Albert loses everything making a flop with Blake while Lucy gains success as a children book writer.Written by married couple Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, this is Hollywood married life with all the ups and downs. Drew Barrymore is actually the supporting actress. This is more about the pairing between O'Neal and Long. They have to sell their chemistry and their relationship. It's passable but it could be better. It needs more humor especially in the first half. The second half has the needed heartbreak. The climatic moment when the couple is literally pulling Casey apart is very effective.

Writing team Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers scored a bullseye with IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES, a surprisingly smart and amusing comedy that blended the family dysfunction comedy with the "inside Hollywood" type of comedy and the results is quite entertaining. Our story begins with 10-year old KC Brotzky (Drew Barrymore)arriving in a Los Angeles courtroom where she is suing for emancipation from her divorced parents,filmmakers Albert and Lucy Brotzky (Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long). The film then flashes back to the beginning of Albert and Lucy's relationship,showcasing the first smash hit film they made together, followed by another film during which Albert has an affair with the leading lady (Sharon Stone,very funny in one of her earliest roles)and how the making of this film tore Albert and Lucy apart. Albert and his new love then make a "Gone With the Wind"-type spectacular that bombs at the box office and things just go from bad to worse with poor little KC caught in the middle and tired of being a bargaining chip between her parents. O'Neal delivers what is probably the best performance of his career and Long is a good match for him. Aided by a deft screenplay, O'Neal, Long, and Barrymore deliver a nearly forgotten gem here which delivers warm family laughs and takes accurate potshots at Hollywood as well.

This movie is one of the very best of its type. What is this movie about?It is mostly about old regrets, and living and learning life lessons in marriage and family situations. This is not a movie for kids, but for mature adults, although for some reason it seems to be classified as a kid movie in some way. But no kids would understand this movie, and I doubt whether anyone under the age of 25 could get much from this movie.The end of the movie is really touching, and the music used at the end is perfectly appropriate.But the movie does have its weaknesses: it seems to be caught between comdey and drama, and in some small way, that does not work entirely well.Still, definitely a movie to catch, but for adults only.

A very young Drew Barrymore decides to divorce her parents (Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long) in this hit-and-miss comedy that never does come together. The two have been at odds and pretty much separated for a while after their careers get in the way of what once was a happy and loving marriage. O'Neal hits super-stardom as a film-maker, but does not give Long the credit she deserves and starts romancing the star of his first feature film (the scene-stealing Sharon Stone). He becomes a big-time celebrity with Stone now at his side while Long sinks into depression, but then there is a reversal of fortune as Long becomes a great novelist and O'Neal loses his shirt on a big-budget "Gone With the Wind"-styled film that tanks with critics and audiences. The movie goes back and forth between the media-crazed trial and flashbacks that, like the film, are sometimes mediocre. 2.5 out of 5 stars.