''Irreconcilable Differences'' is a 1984 American
comedy-drama film starring
Ryan O'Neal,
Shelley Long, and
Drew Barrymore. The film was a minor
box-office success, making over $12 million. For their performances, both Long and Barrymore were nominated for
Golden Globe Awards
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...
.
Plot
Casey Brodsky has decided to
divorce her parents and have her nanny, Maria Hernandez, appointed as Casey's
legal guardian
A legal guardian is a person who has been appointed by a court or otherwise has the legal authority (and the corresponding duty) to make decisions relevant to the personal and property interests of another person who is deemed incompetent, call ...
. It results in media attention, and her parents, Albert and Lucy Brodsky, are both brought out of their respective self-absorbed lives and made to testify in court about their personal lives.
At a truck stop in Indiana on the night of
January 20th, 1973, film professor Albert Brodsky is hitchhiking across the country, where he gets picked up by Lucy van Patten, a woman who has ambitions of writing books, particularly for children, but her fiancé "Bink", a gruff
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It include ...
man, represses her, and she is depressed about being relegated to the life of a military wife. Through getting to know Albert, Lucy loosens her inhibitions, breaks off her engagement to Bink, and marries Albert shortly afterwards.
The couple move to California, where Albert attaches himself to a prominent Hollywood producer, who entrusts him to film a romantic script the producer has
kept shelved for a long time. When Albert suffers from writer's block about the romance, Lucy aids him with her writing skills. The film becomes a box-office hit and he is nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Director
The Academy Award for Best Director (officially known as the Academy Award of Merit for Directing) is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibit ...
, but cracks are forming in Albert and Lucy's marriage, particularly since Albert was slow to credit Lucy for the screenplay and he is frequently traveling to places such as
Cannes, France, while leaving his daughter in the care of Lucy, or more often Maria, their Mexican maid. Casey is becoming more fluent in Spanish as a result of spending more time with Maria than her own parents. When Albert sees a young woman named Blake Chandler working at a hot dog stand, he takes her home and casts her in his next film, which becomes a moderate success. When Lucy sees signs that Albert is interested in Blake for more than just acting, she divorces him, further troubling Casey. Albert ensures that Lucy gets custody of Casey, while he lives in a Hollywood mansion with Blake.
A turning point occurs when Lucy, angered both at Albert's procrastination in paying child support and at the sight of a sloppy, overweight woman in a supermarket buying the same comfort food as she is, hurries home and channels her anger into writing a tell-all novel. Meanwhile, Albert's producers are warning him not to attempt his musical remake of ''
Gone with the Wind,'' which he is calling ''Atlanta'', but Albert ignores their advice, and his budget for the picture skyrockets, mainly because of his own perfectionist attitude and Blake's mediocre singing voice, along with her
diva-like behavior on set. ''Atlanta'' becomes an embarrassing
box-office bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
, costing Albert any assignments in Hollywood and causing Blake to desert him. Meanwhile, Lucy's novel becomes a runaway success, allowing her to buy and move into Albert's former mansion, and she begins to morph into a diva.
In a final confrontation following a one night stand, Albert and Lucy quarrel in front of Casey about her custody, which degenerates into a literal
tug of war, with each parent pulling on one of Casey's arms, ignoring her pained protests. That is the final straw for Casey, who then decides to divorce both her parents.
In the courtroom, Casey gives testimony that just because two parents no longer love each other, that does not give them the right to ignore their children. Both Albert and Lucy break down in tears. Maria is given legal custody of Casey.
Months later Casey is still living with Maria and her family. Albert seems to be doing better now, getting modest but regular work directing TV commercials and
sitcom
A sitcom, a Portmanteau, portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troup ...
s, and is being considered to direct a
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feat ...
, and Lucy has returned to her more down-to-earth personality. Both Lucy and Albert arrive at Maria's house for visitation with Casey at the same time by mistake, and the three of them decide to go out and eat together at a family restaurant, suggesting now a more peaceful, though decidedly bittersweet, relationship exists among them.
Cast
*
Ryan O'Neal as Albert Brodsky
*
Shelley Long as Lucy Van Patten Brodsky
*
Drew Barrymore as Casey Brodsky
*
Sam Wanamaker as David Kessler
*
Allen Garfield as Phil Hanner
*
Sharon Stone as Blake Chandler
* Beverlee Reed as Dotty Chandler
* Hortensia Colorado as Maria Hernandez
*
David Graf as Bink
* Jessica Christensen as infant Casey Brodsky
Production
''Irreconcilable Differences'' was inspired by the divorce between director
Peter Bogdanovich and his first wife, producer
Polly Platt, after he left her for actress
Cybill Shepherd (whose proxy in the film is played by
Sharon Stone).
Sam Wanamaker plays a producer based on
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
. Some of Bogdanovich's early films are parodied/altered, such as ''
Targets'', ''
The Last Picture Show'', ''
Daisy Miller'', and the big-budget motion picture that broke him, the musical ''
At Long Last Love'' (depicted in the film as an adaptation of ''
Gone With The Wind'').
Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers had written and produced ''
Private Benjamin''. The success of that movie enabled Shyer to direct this one.
"I love the movie," said Ryan O'Neal. "So I did it for no salary, just points. It was made for under $6 million, so they didn't have the money to pay us. Still, I think it's some of my best work. Maybe I should work like that more often."
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, the film has an approval rating of 57% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
the film has a score of 52% based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' did not like the title and did not think the film was very promising at first, "The plot drifts dangerously toward a series of stagy confrontations, but avoids the obvious: This movie has been written with so much wit and imagination that even obligatory scenes have a certain freshness and style." Ebert calls it "one of the funnier and more intelligent movies of 1984" and gives it 3 and a half stars out of 4.
Accolades
Golden Globe Awards
* Nominated -
Best Actress - Comedy or Musical
Best or The Best may refer to:
People
* Best (surname), people with the surname Best
* Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer
Companies and organizations
* Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain
* Best Lock Corporation ...
(Shelley Long)
* Nominated -
Best Supporting Actress (Drew Barrymore)
See also
*
List of American films of 1984
References
External links
*
*
{{Charles Shyer
1984 films
American comedy-drama films
1984 comedy-drama films
Films directed by Charles Shyer
Films with screenplays by Charles Shyer
Films set in California
Films set in Indiana
Films set in the 1970s
Warner Bros. films
Films about filmmaking
American courtroom films
1984 directorial debut films
Films with screenplays by Nancy Meyers
Films about divorce
1984 comedy films
1984 drama films
1980s English-language films
1980s American films