With all the publicity this movie has received, I was primed to like it. Sadly, I did not.
The performances across the board are great. Driver and Johansson are excellent. The writing, to a point, is good. The supporting cast is good. But the story, to me, was so manipulative that I couldn't watch it. Well, I watched it until the two shark lawyers got involved and their demands for retainers so appalling that I had to skip ahead and just watch the last 15 minutes.
Here are two smart, personable people who are ready to end their marriage and they agree on doing it without lawyers but they get sucked into that death spiral that will take them into the financial cesspool where many divorcing couples end up. Wait! They are smart! They already agreed on most of the splitting up stuff! And now comes the feeding frenzy...... and the pulling in of the audience. Who's side are you going to take?
I simply hated that their personal trauma was being reduced to a dollar figure. It's life, I know, but not one I need to watch.
The last 15 minutes was fine. It seemed they had worked out the co-parenting thing and the kid would survive and possibly thrive. So would they. But to say I am sorry I missed the hashing out of lawyers fees and the terrifying angst and fear that produces would be a lie.
Too bad. I had a lot of hope for this movie. It could have been better, at least for me. It could have portrayed the two parents as partners who had to make hard choices for themselves, their careers, their kid, and it could have been empowering in that way. Instead, greed and selfishness got involved and it left me cold.
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