A.C.O.D. 
Starring: Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Catherine O'Hara, Amy Poehler, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clark Duke, Ken Howard, Jessica Alba, Jane Lynch
Directed by: Stuart Zicherman
Rated: R
Run Time: 88 mins
Genre: Comedy
Opens October 18th
By Lisa Minzey of The Reel Critic.com
Another film opening this week features a large cast of comedic characters in a story loosely based on the experience of Director Stu Zicherman’s life. “A.C.O.D.” (Adults Children of Divorce) stars Adam Scott, Jane Lynch, Catherine O’Hara and Richard Jenkins.
When the divorce rate is hovering somewhere around fifty percent, you have a whole generation growing up in a unusual living situation. Some divorces end well, but for Carter (Adam Scott) his parents decided to drop the d-bomb on him on his 9th birthday and have hated each other ever since.
Now that Carter is an adult, he has managed to keep the peace between his parents until his younger brother Trey (Clark Duke) announces his engagement. Now Carter is put in the middle of his feuding parents about how to plan this wedding.
As Carter fights for his sanity, he seeks out the therapist that helped him as a child, Dr. Dr. Judith (Jane Lynch). Carter discovers that she’s not really a psychiatrist but a state funded researcher that wrote a book, “Children of Divorce” that he was a subject of. As Carter talks to Dr. Judith, filling her in on the last decade or two on his development, she gets the brilliant idea to do a follow up book on the children in the first book to see how they turned out as adults. Carter wants to clear his pseudo name from the book, so he sees this as an opportunity to show everyone that he is a functioning adult.
As chief family peacemaker, Carter gets his mother, Melissa (Catherine O’Hara), and his father Hugh (Richard Jenkins) both to the same restaurant, forcing them to work out their issues about their son’s upcoming nuptials. As good of intentions Carter had, this ends up being a disaster, for the very reasons his parents broke up have brought them together putting everyone’s present and future relationships at risk. Can Carter get through these new found revelations or as an Adult Child of Divorce will his adulthood and romantic relationships follow the same path as his parent’s doomed relationships?
With such a strong assembly of comedic actors, interesting subject material and back story one would expect non stop hilarity to ensue. The comedic elements are there, but this film lacks a certain snark that the actors in the cast are known for. The performances feel a little soft and the build up to the resolution is not as fulfilling as the viewer may expect. If you’re a child of divorce, you may resonate with some of the themes in this film. You be the judge when “A.C.O.D.” opens in theaters starting Friday October 18, 2013
