Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Irreconcilable Differences Blu-ray Movie Review

D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 12, 2013

My sister-in–law was Production Manager on the long running sitcom Cheers, and therefore had a front row seat for years at one of the most iconic series in NBC’s “Must See TV” era. Her home in the San Fernando Valley is filled with some incredible memorabilia from the long running show, including a gorgeous painting of the bar which I believe may have hung over the main set during the show's run. Now despite her long association and insider status, my sister-in-law has always been the model of discretion when asked about various cast members and their quirks and peccadilloes, but that of course hasn't stopped me from wondering about certain things all the same. Her tenure as Production Manager was mostly during the “Kirstie Alley” years of the show (she was a Production Assistant in the earlier seasons), and so even if she were to be forthcoming with any "insider" information, I'd still probably be more or less talking to myself if I even deigned to bring up a question I’ve occasionally wondered about with regard to Shelley Long. Long became an overnight sensation as Sam Malone’s first barmaid nemesis, Diane, but she, like so many television stars before and since, decided the big screen was fairly screaming her name, and she departed the series after a few years. Her film career, while peppered with occasional reasonable box office successes, has hardly been the stuff of Oscars and hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, and the cynic in me has the temerity to wonder, “Was it worth it? Was it worth leaving a Top 10 television series for a somewhat less than stellar film career?” Other stars, like David Caruso, jettisoned their burgeoning television careers only to find that film stardom remained steadfastly out of their grasp, ultimately rather sheepishly returning to the weekly series fold. Long has certainly managed to stay busy on both the big screen and the small (she currently guest stars as Jay’s neurotic ex-wife on Modern Family), but a lot of her film work has frankly seemed awfully like “very special episodes” of sitcoms to begin with. And while it’s only fair to point out that Long had made some films (including Night Shift) before she became so well known on Cheers, there’s also no denying that her role on that show probably upped her appeal among producers, directors and casting agents. Long made Irreconcilable Differences when she was still experiencing her first flush of major success in Cheers, and it shows Long in a mostly extremely favorable light. She still has some rather Diane-esque tics in her performance (a quality which would recur throughout several subsequent films), but there’s also some nicely modulated dramatic elements here that at least hint at depths that few if any of either her film or television roles have really adequately mined.

There’s an iconic Tammy Wynette song called D-I-V-O-R-C-E which has the heartbreaking or (if you’re a modern day cynic) hiliarious opening lyric:

Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don't want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E
But the words we're hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me.

One has the strong feeling that little Casey Brodsky (Drew Barrymore), the child at the center of a rather unusual divorce proceeding in Irreconcilable Differences, might respond to that gambit with some spelling out of her own:

”I u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d e-v-e-r-y l-a-s-t t-h-i-n-g y-o-u a-r-e t-a-l-k-i-n-g a-b-o-u-t.”

Casey, it turns out, has decided to divorce her parents, something that does indeed happen in very rare cases, usually emancipating older teens to pursue their own lives if the court feels the parental relationship is hopelessly frayed or even counter to the “child”’s best interests. Casey’s situation is a bit more convoluted, for her parents are minor celebrities, Albert Brodsky (Ryan O’Neal), a film writer and producer, and Lucy Van Patten Brodsky (Shelley Long), who has helped her husband (Alma Reville style) but gone on to her own bestselling career as a novelist. The film delves into the long, kind of Two for the Road-esque, history between Albert and Lucy, which, as many long relationships do, has had its own ups and downs, with both incredible successes and spectacular failures greeting both the partners. What’s relevant about all of this emphasis on career is that the film makes clear that while the Brodskys jockey for position, they have a beautiful little girl standing in the background waiting for her turn in the parental spotlight.

Things only get worse when Albert gets sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle and soon is swooning over an aspiring actress (which of course means she’s a waitress), Blake Chandler (Sharon Stone). That leads to a fairly ugly divorce, and the beginning of Albert’s downfall, even as Lucy’s star begins to rise when a sudden moment of revelation finally pushes her to write the novel that has long been gestating in her heart. But Casey is still in the background, now a pawn in a kind of emotional tug of war between her parents. Albert's hubris leads to him pitching a huge musical version of Gone With the Wind (ironically there already was a stage musical of this vaunted property by the time this film was made), whose ongoing disaster finally snaps Albert at least partially back to his senses. (Shyer and his longtime writing partner Nancy Meyer based the film partly on the tumultuous relationship between Peter Bogdanovich, Polly Platt and Cybill Shepherd, though one has to wonder if Bogdanovich ever wanted to musicalize Gone With the Wind. Maybe At Long Last Love had a secret life no one knows about.)

Irreconcilable Differences is never as insightful as, say, Kramer vs. Kramer, and it in fact has a kind of lighter approach to this very serious fare that keeps things poised rather delicately between melodrama and bittersweet humor. It’s a bit hard to really feel very sorry for either Albert or Lucy, despite their various problems, simply because they are at least tangentially connected to the high life in La-La Land. Albert’s narcissism comes in for some of the most pointed humor, but Lucy’s descent into self pity also is examined. But from an emotional standpoint, Casey is actually the only character that most audience members are going sympathize with and for, and that’s perhaps only right, all things considered.

Some people have compared Irreconcilable Differences to screwball comedies of yore, but tonally it’s much more reminiscent of glossy late fifties-early sixties romantic comedies like the ones starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson (or suitable replacements like James Garner). The film doesn’t really take the easy way out the way films of that era typically did, eschewing a tidy happy ending for something at least a little more nuanced, if not exactly “real” feeling. Co-writer and director Charles Shyer doesn’t quite mine the comedic heights he did in his Private Benjamin, but he coaxes excellent performances out of Long, O’Neal and especially Barrymore, who claims the spotlight quite easily even if her character never quite does.

Irreconcilable Differences Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Irreconcilable Differences is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As Charles Shyer makes clear in his commentary, unusual care was taken by cinematographer William A. Fraker to shade this film with different looks delineating the different phases of Albert and Lucy's relationship, and some may mistake the more diffuse sequences in this film for overt softness, which they really aren't. The biggest issue here is slight fading of the elements, which leads at time to a kind of pale pink hue in some of the flesh tones (see the first screenshot of Shelley Long for a prime example). Otherwise, though, this is a nicely sharp and precise looking transfer that offers very good clarity and good fine detail in close-ups. Contrast is occasionally just slightly problematic (there's a tendency to push contrast in some scenes which lead to a slight effulgent quality creeping in), but as with all Olive presentations, no egregious digital tweaking has been done here and Irreconcilable Differences retains a very naturally filmic appearance.

Irreconcilable Differences Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Irreconcilable Differences features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix which serves the film quite well. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented and the few moments of boisterous sonic activity are also rendered with excellent fidelity and precision. There's not a huge amount of dynamic range here, as should probably be expected, and while this track isn't a knock your socks off experience, it suffices admirably for the film's relatively unambitious sound design.

Irreconcilable Differences Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Commentary by Charles Shyer actually also includes his longtime collaborator Bruce Block. The two are quite comfortable with each other and obviously have very strong memories to this day of the Irreconcilable Differences shoot. This isn't overly technical, but still gets into some of the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking process (notably William Fraker's cinematography). Highly enjoyable.


• Charles Shyer Introduction (1080i; 1:09) is a brief but charming moment with the co-writer and director of the film, who admits to being a little nervous at seeing this film after so many years. Shyer asks that the audience "cuts [him] a little slack" since this was his first time in the director's chair. Duly noted.


• Featurette (1080i; 2:03) focuses on the writing, and Shyer admits that the Peter Bogdanovich-Polly Platt-Cybill Shepherd triangle was part of the inspiration for the film.


• Gallery (1080p; 3:10)


• Trailer (480i; 2:29)

Note: This is now the second or third Olive title with at least one supplementary feature whose Main Menu doesn't function in a logical way. On at least a couple of recent Olive releases which have only offered a commentary as their sole supplement, the "Bonus Feature" menu option doesn't seem to do anything, and using the Audio button on the remote remains the easiest way to access the commentary. On this particular release, there are actually quite a few supplements, but I personally could not get any submenu of the Bonus items to load until after I had started the film and selected the commentary as my audio option. Then returning to the Main Menu suddenly made the rest of the Bonus items available to choose.

Irreconcilable Differences Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hollywood's peccadilloes are a pretty easy target, but it's to Charles Shyer's credit that he at least attempts to invest this look at two self- absorbed mini-celebrities with a little depth. The film has a number of decent laugh lines, but it's also infused with an overall bittersweet quality that anchors the film in some very real feeling emotion. Long, O'Neal and Barrymore are excellent, as is Sharon Stone as an ambitious starlet (no jokes about typecasting, please). This Blu-ray looks and sounds quite good overall, and unlike many Olive releases, it comes with quite a few appealing supplements (though accessing those supplements can be a bit of a chore, as detailed above). Recommended.