A.C.O.D. (review)

Review by Elizabeth Weitz

A.C.O.D (Adult Children of Divorce) could have very well been one of those movies that takes the premise of an entire generation of people who saw their childhoods torn apart from divorce (Hello Generation X, it appears that you are now a viable subject once more) and tried to play it just for laughs, but instead, first-time director Stu Zicherman manages to mine the deep well of kid pain for a darker shade of comedy that will resonate with anyone who remembers the Great Divorce Wave of the late 70s-early 80s.

For Carter (Adam Scott), playing referee between his warring parents Melissa (Catherine O’Hara) and Hugh (Richard Jenkins) has been a lifelong occupation, beginning with his disastrous 9th birthday and continuing up to today some 25+ years later. When Carter finds out his baby brother Trey (Clark Duke) is getting married and wants both of their parents to be there, Carter goes back into the ring in order to get his parents to agree to be in the same room as each other, only to have his entire life turned upside down.

Yeah, it sounds like every other movie, I know, but unlike other divorce dramedies, A.C.O.D. dives a bit deeper into the psyche of those Adult Children of Divorce and comes up with some really twisted shit.

For instance, like most kids who went through a tough and brutal divorce, Carter ended up in therapy. Unfortunately, Carter’s therapy sessions were not so much with an actual therapist but with a pop psychologist named Dr. Judith (Jane Lynch) who used his family turmoil to write a book that ended up on the New York Times Best Sellers List…a book that Carter knew nothing about until he hunts down his old therapist to see if he can get some help in dealing with his parents.

And it is from this horrible, narrowly-constructive book that had seemingly tried to define the young Carter, that he finds himself fighting against, alongside all the craptastic fallout of dealing with his brother’s wedding and his atrocious, self-obsessed Baby Boomer parents.

There are several sub-plots dealing with the relationship between Carter and his long-time, long-suffering girlfriend Lauren (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as well as a chance meeting between another of Dr. Judith’s “kids” named Michelle (Jessica Alba), and while these story lines are interesting, where the movie really shines is when it showcases the incredible fucked-up family dynamic of a pair of multi-married parents and their own partners who have been just as abused by the original divorce of Melissa and Hugh as their children were. 

Amy Poehler as Carter’s same age stepmother Sondra (known affectionately as The Cuntessa) is fantastic, as is Ken Howard who plays Gary, a man who has multi-marriages under his belt as well but still manages to be one of the only “Parents” who actually seems to care about the people around them, which is kind of amazing when you watch just how horrific Melissa and Hugh really are to everyone.

Now, while the film does have moments that you wish were a bit more fleshed out (or perhaps even allowed to play out for a bit longer) there are a few places where scenes seem a bit too stunted (especially between Carter and Michelle) that you wonder why it was even left in the movie at all, but don’t let that deter you from the film, there are some exceptional performances here and it is definitely worth seeing.

Especially if you have ever been in the same room with your divorced parents longer than two seconds.