whynotgoglobal This movie is held together by a typically intelligent, sympathetic performance from Adam Scott, with fine support from Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I believed in and cared about them as the central couple, with Scott struggling to deal with the chaos created by others and Winstead the voice of reason in his life. Other performances capture the selfishness of a dysfunctional family nicely, and I quickly found myself rooting for Scott and feeling the pain when his life is derailed. This movie doesn't patronise the audience with clichéd resolutions, it's funny enough to keep us amused and thanks to Scott and Winstead it never slips into pointless farce.

keeverj After watching A.C.O.D. on Netflix I immediately logged onto IMDb to see what sort of ratings the movie had received from critics and other users. I was in fact very surprised that the reviews were not stronger for this movie. I believe the main problem with this movie is that it must be listed as a comedy. A.C.O.D. is not the traditional comedy with one liners, slapstick, and crazy over the top situations, but is more of a drama dealing with the struggles of an adult living with the trauma of growing up the child of divorced parents. The protagonist Carter's character arc is quite engaging and mostly well written. Even things that he did that I felt were out of character seemed passable when his overall emotional state was considered. The movie was quite deep and could be potentially very meaningful to real life adult children of divorce. Other positives of this film are in its acting and direction. Most of the actors in this movie were quite good. Adam Scott was typical Adam Scott, nothing new there. The direction was also quite good and I enjoyed the soundtrack. If you plan to go into this movie expecting laughs though, you won't probably enjoy it as much as I did.

Johan Dondokambey The story touches on a pseudo-science of the all too common syndrome of the American culture of having dysfunctional families. The assumption on top of this wreckage of a family culture also turns out to be non of a comedy deserving any praise. With the story offering many twists and surprises, the movie still is not a good entertainment. The story build up takes too long. The humor often is too corny. Also the drama side often lacks strength. The acting overall is also not a good job. Adam Scott seems to forget that this movie is meant to be a comedy, delving too deep at the drama side. Richard Jenkins and Catherine O'Hara tried their best and played their parts at a standard quality for a comedy. Having Mary Elizabeth Winstead really did nothing to help the acting overall.

Hellmant 'A.C.O.D.': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five) New comedy-drama film about a restaurant owner who finds out he was one of the subjects of a book, on the effects of divorce on children (when he was a kid of course), and the author now wants to write a follow-up on the subjects as adults. The title is an abbreviation for Adult Children of Divorce and is based (loosely) on the director's (Stu Zicherman) actual experiences. It was written by Zicherman and Ben Karlin and stars Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Catherine O'Hara, Clark Duke, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Amy Poehler, Jane Lynch, Ken Howard and Jessica Alba. I found the movie to be very funny and a seemingly honest (yet exaggerated) look at divorce and it's effects on family members.Scott plays Carter, a successful restaurant owner who's been dating his girlfriend, Lauren (Winstead), for four years but has never thought at all about marriage (or even moving in with her) mainly because of his history dealing with his parents (and their many marriages). Jenkins plays his father Hugh, who's now married to a woman Carter's age (Poehler), and O'Hara plays his mother Melissa, who's now married to a nice guy named Gary (Howard). Hugh and Melissa have not spoken in twenty years and hate each other's guts. When Carter's younger brother Trey (Duke), who doesn't even remember their parents being together, tells Carter he's getting married it becomes Carter's responsibility to convince his parents that they can be in the same room together (for the wedding). He goes to see Dr. Judith (Lynch) for help and finds out the woman he thought was his childhood psychiatrist (Dr. Judith) is not a psychiatrist at all but was actually writing a book on children of divorce (and Carter was one of her subjects). Things become more complicated when Carter's parents do end up seeing each other and Dr. Judith wants to write a follow-up to her book (with Carter's involvement again).Most of the crew who worked on the film are all adult children of divorce (as we find out through interviews in the end credits). It is an interesting and very serious subject matter but that doesn't mean it can't be made fun of at all. This film does a good job of treating the subject matter seriously while still being really funny at times. Characters and issues are of course exaggerated but they still seem like real people with real problems. I think Scott is outstanding in the lead and the supporting cast all does what they do best as well (in minimal parts though). Zicherman does a good job for a first time director and the screenplay is well written as well (coming from a writer of 'ELEKTRA'!). I'd definitely say it's worth seeing, unless divorce is a touchy subject for you (possibly); although it probably is for most of the people that made the movie as well.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gmBnRGZV8o