Ever since I saw him in Step Brothers...I always knew that Adam Scott had the chops to be a leading man buried deep down inside of him. ACOD, which stands for Adult Children Of Divorce gives Scott the opportunity to prove to the whole world what I knew for years now. Not only is he absolutely delightful in this film but he is the anchor that keeps it afloat. If his character were played by just about anyone else...I would have been incredibly annoyed. As written, Scott's character is a prick, a loser and a constant whiner but he manages to make it work because he's so damn likable.
In the film, Scott plays Carter whose little brother Trey (Clark Duke) is abruptly getting married to his short time girlfriend. Carter and Trey's parents, Hugh and Melissa (Richard Jenkins and Catherine O'Hara) are bitterly divorced. When I say bitter divorce...I am totally sugarcoating it. These two have not been in a room together for over 10 years because they can't stand the sight of one another. This presents a problem seeing that Trey wants both of them at his wedding and he recruits Carter into trying to make them get along. I'm going to stop with the plot there because an incredible amount of delightfully wicked twists pursue after this.
The whole cast is great. Hugh is a total jerk about everything and Jenkins plays him perfectly. O'Hara is great as the bitchy Melissa who just wants to be left alone. Duke is very funny as the unspeakably oblivious Trey. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Lauren---Carter's dedicated girlfriend and she is quite good. Jane Lynch is funny as always playing the voice of reason for Carter. Lastly---Amy Poehler and Ken Howard play Hugh and Melissa's new spouses and are quite good. I particularly love how the film didn't write them off as evil people like most films of this type tend to do.
The screenplay by Ben Karlin and director Stu Zicherman is quite sharp. It has a lot to say about the dangers of marriage and falling in love too quickly as well as the quirkiness and unpredictable nature of life in general. However, I must state that the cast really keeps this film afloat. Although the writing is razor sharp, almost every character is written in an unlikable fashion and the cast really does make this film better than it should have been.
I really liked ACOD even though I was aware that I only really liked it because of what Scott and the rest of the cast do with the material. However, I can't complain about this. I have seen so many films this year that don't work at all despite great performances (Lee Daniels' The Butler, Afternoon Delight, The Fifth Estate, ETC) that I was delighted to see one that worked because of the performances.
(4 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for language and brief sexual content)
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