Irreconcilable Differences

Warner Bros. | Release Date: September 28, 1984

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

52	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Roger Ebert

Irreconcilable Differences is sometimes cute, and is about mean parents, but it also is one of the funnier and more intelligent movies of 1984, and if viewers can work their way past the ungainly title, they're likely to have a surprisingly good time. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

Differences would have benefited from a more cerebral lead actor, but O’Neal does a good job of capturing Bogdanovich’s ingratiating passion for cinema and his fatal hubris, and the script scores some clever jabs at the vapid self-absorption of show-biz types. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Shyer's direction was on the money most of the time but was just a little flabby occasionally--perhaps because he cowrote the script with Meyers and hated to lose a precious word. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Only the engaging lightness of the two lead performances prevents the film from falling into utter treacliness. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Irreconcilable Differences begins strongly as a human comedy about a nine-year-old who decides to take legal action to divorce her parents. Unfortunately, this premise is soon jettisoned for a rather familiar tale of a marriage turned sour as shown step-by-step. Read full review

David Sterritt

Directed by Charles Shyer, who brings much imagination to the first half but loses all momentum in the homestretch. [04 Oct 1984, p.27]

Janet Maslin

Mr. Shyer has no idea how to frame this material, let alone make it funny. Most of Irreconcilable Differences is terribly flat; the camerawork is dim and unflattering, the sets are bare even when they're supposed to look lived in and some of the dialogue is simply beyond the actors. Read full review

Tom Shales

The film aspires to some sort of commentary about the modern problems of career-minded spouses. Shyer and Meyers are trying to tap a modern vein but they don't know where to put the needle; all they get is water. This is a film with Perrier in its veins. [28 Sep 1984, p.C4]

Laurie Horn

If you liked the meat of Kramer vs. Kramer, the reasoning goes, this movie should be the sauce. Too bad. Irreconcilable Differences, the latest comedy by the husband-and-wife writing team that simmered away schmaltzily in Private Benjamin, has its seasonings awry. [28 Sep 1984, p.B1]