Triple Trouble

I didn't know anything about this movie before watching it, except that Drew Barrymore divorces her parents. I think that could be why I found the movie so surprising. But the movie has so many elements that make it one of the strongest films of its type. It's completely engrossing, showing realistically how a marriage can go from highs to lows and that each party can be responsible. It also shows how selfish parents can be and how without realising it they can screw with a child (drew). After watching this film I came to IMDB to see if shelley long or ryan o'neal had won oscars for their performances and if the film won best picture, but apparently it was shunned and not many people have seen it....at least there's cable. It looked like a lot of effort went into making the movie, so it's a shame it's been overlooked.

Someone above said she's not real in this. I thought she was very real. Her closing comments to the court are priceless and truthful. Also funny and dramatic is star Shelley Long, who is sunk with bad hairstyles and colors throughout the film. Did she tee off the film's stylist? Ryan's excellent and looks hot. Sharon Stone's the funniest I've ever seen her. My favorite line: "Dammit, Dottie this Tab is warm! Really mother, for $600 a week I expect you to know the difference between hot and cold!" This film's comments on the Hollywood scene are great because Charles Shyer & Nancy Meyers have lived it. Underrated. DVD, please. p.s. Closing song is dated and maudlin, badly performed by Sinatra. Written by Peter Allen & Carole Bayer Sager. "You & Me (We Wanted It All)".

Say what you will about the Shyer-Meyers team ("Private Benjamin", "Father Of The Bride", "Baby Boom"), they know how to craft a movie, often exploiting every ounce of sentiment from their scripts. "Irreconcilable Differences" is somewhat of a departure for them however, a depiction of neurotic movie people, denizens of Hollywood, who have hardly any good points. As soon as the young couple finds success, it's a rich road downhill. The plot set-up has youngster Drew Barrymore trying to emancipate herself away from her famous mom and dad, and the H-Wood high-life is shown as both cause and effect. A terrific sequence involving Sharon Stone in a quasi-musical version of "Gone With The Wind" is satiric comic genius, yet the movie is so hard on its players, so brittle and tough, it's difficult to shake off the bad vibes even as the third act winds down to a sunny conclusion. Perceptively, the screenplay includes many awful (and awfully funny) truths about marriage, money and careers, but the cynical undermining of the picture may put fluff-oriented viewers off. ***1/2 from ****

The movie starts with a lawyer telling his client what it means to divorce. Then we find out his client is a precocious little girl.

In the courtroom, the girl's parents begin telling their story, which we see though flashbacks. Albert is hitchhiking across the country, and Lucy is taking her boyfriend's car to him, and refuses to stop but instead splashes mud all over Albert. Later Albert is freezing and wet and Lucy feels sorry for him ...

The movie is mostly a comedy as Albert and Lucy get to know each other and have a number of misadventures. But Albert, who has a new job as a film professor at UCLA, really wants to direct, and as he makes the contacts that will allow this to happen, he and Lucy see Hollywood life and hope that won't happen to them. Unfortunately ...

I liked the movie best when it was a lighthearted comedy. But something had to happen to make Casey want to 'divorce' her parents. Some of it was funny, and some hard to watch. Eventually, whenever the movie would take a dramatic turn, it would recover. And the ending was happy, in a way.

Shelley Long and Ryan O'Neal did a great job, and Long went through a number of character changes. Lucy started out adorable and perky but later became disillusioned and bitter. Then she became a confident ... witch (or something that rhymes, anyway).

Drew Barrymore was wonderful for a child. I saw a lot of good acting performances, and it would be hard to list them all. Sharon Stone was good as Blake Chandler, a bubblehead who for some odd reason became a star with Albert's help. Blake later showed more dimension to her character, displaying a warm side at one point and later a spoiled side as she expected star treatment. Another good performance came from the actress playing the housekeeper/nanny who apparently spent the most time with Casey. Not a lot of lines, but the character's professionalism and warmth came through.

It was a worthwhile movie.

"Irreconcilable Differences" is a very good seriocomedy about a Hollywood couple who are sued for divorce by their 9 year-old daughter. Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and Drew Barrymore are well cast as the family torn apart by career, jealousy, and a little girl caught in the middle who just can't take it anymore with her parents' constant fighting. So as a result, she takes them to court, and the three members of the family tell their story (shown in flashback). Directed by Charles Shyer from a screenplay by Shyer and Nancy Meyers, "Irreconcilable Differences" shows us what its like to be in the Hollywood film industry which is fascinatingly detailed here. One hilarious scene is the part when acclaimed film director O'Neal is shooting a movie which appears to be a musical remake of "Gone With The Wind". A very young Sharon Stone stars as the actress playing the character modeled after Scarlett O'Hara. I was cracking up during that scene because it's naturally funny. But there are touching moments too, especially the early scenes when the O'Neal and Long characters first meet. Plus the scenes after they have their daughter are sweet and tender. "Irreconcilable Differences" is an underrated movie that deserved more attention than it received when released in 1984. It's a well-acted, well-written film.

*** (out of four)