Watch Divorce American Style For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

What happened to Debbie Reynold's face? I didn't think it would be possible to make Debbie Reynolds look scary but I was wrong. Did she have plastic surgery the day before this film started shooting? Or did this production hire the makeup man from the Batman TV show? And her hairline. I've seen aging sportscasters with hair plugs that looked more realistic. This is such a painful try-hard movie with zero realistic scenes. The bowling alley where Jason Robards sidles up to Dick Van Dyke? I would have called the lawyer and got a restraining order. By the time we're let in on why he's so persistent we've cringed out way to premature wrinkles. Credit where it's due, however -- Jean Simmons was a fine lady. She is so far above this dreck it's alarming. I felt embarrassed for all involved.

I had mildly looked forward to seeing this film because of the stars. Dick van Dyke is usually good, and Debbie Reynolds almost always is. And I loved "Divorce Italian Style," so I thought the American version sounded promising as well.I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. What a disappointment! The first twenty minutes consists largely of people all yelling at each other at once in different venues: a conference room, a living room, a courtroom...Debbie Reynolds has never looked less attractive. In fact, I have never seen her look unattractive until I saw this film. With her hair piled up on top of her head, and her pallid makeup, she reminded me of a blond version of the Katzenjammer Mamma.I nearly recognized Jean Simmons with her short blond hair, reprising her faded look from "Mister Buddwing" the previous year.Almost any movie that keeps my interest till the end rates at least 4 stars. I turned this turkey off after a grueling forty minutes. I didn't even laugh once. The only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 2 is that it has a lot of well-known and talented people in it.

This movie is extremely dated and was undoubtedly unrealistic upon release, no matter how hip the filmmakers thought they were being. Husbands impoverished by alimony and child support while their ex-wives live in the lap of luxury? Please. Post-divorce, women were (and are) the ones most likely to have financial struggles, due to the continuing inequities in society, but they have also proved themselves much less dependent than the women in this movie, going to heroic heights in trying to support themselves and their children. Of course, this movie never acknowledges that maybe a divorced woman could get a job! Actually, for all its melodrama (which is enjoyable in itself), 1945's Mildred Pierce is more realistic in this regard--after Mildred and her husband split up, she goes to work as a waitress and then (you go, girl!) opens her own restaurant. At least filmmakers Lear and Yorkin dealt more intelligently with social issues a few years later in All in the Family. This movie does have an excellent cast, down to the supporting players, but they deserve better. Sitcom great Dick Van Dyke never had much luck with movies, and Jean Simmons, a wonderful actress, made few films that were worthy of her talents. Debbie Reynolds and Jason Robards, happily, were in many better movies.

Norman Lear-written divorce-comedy has bickering, bored married couple Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds splitting up, re-entering the bewildering dating scene. Begins well, with amusing, satirical jabs at suburban married life, but it runs out of gas early on. Conrad Hall's evocative cinematography is a plus, and some of the dialogue has snap, but Lear's ideas get bogged down in sitcomville. The introduction of a second couple (Jason Robards and Jean Simmons) doesn't work at all, perhaps because neither actor seems to realize this is supposed to be a comedy, and a segue to "Hip Hypnotist" Pat Collins is simply desperate. Van Dyke and Reynolds are both fair. ** from ****