Review of Divorce American Style

the comedy of this film falls entirely flat (hurr durr divorce edgy hurr) there are a few moments which make this worth the watch. van dyke of sitcom fame plays rob petrie, corrupted, and seems terribly comfortable in the role. debbie reynolds is interesting in her own way, as the slightly daffy housewife. jason robards, jean simmons and van johnson are also very entertaining and darkly funny in their respective roles. as a character study it's great, as pseudo-experimental 60s film with nifty camera tricks, it's a failure. all of which makes you wonder if they had put all these great actors in a room with one another, with a script, a rolling camera and no direction, there might have been a happier result.

I enjoyed watching the various characters, especially the men, walk a moral tightrope of sorts; curiously, van dyke's character seems to maintain an air of decency despite it all. i wondered briefly if it were purposeful that the problems the characters identified in their marriage weren't the true ones after all; debbie on one hand seemed to have entirely unrealistic expectations about human behavior, while her husband seemed somewhat unimaginative and even intellectually stunted. "women need to stop crossing the lines between the sexes," what??

seems to work best when it lets the story tell itself; otherwise unbearably clever, with a touch of hubris even.