A new comedy about adult children of divorce and what they carry with them. It’s funny –and it’s not.

In the new film 'A.C.O.D.,' Carter (Adam Scott) reconnects with Dr. Judith (Jane Lynch), his childhood psychologist as he deals with the ongoing effects of his divorced parents' troubled relationship. (Black Bear Pictures)

We have images in our heads of the theater of divorce. Mom or Dad or both sit the kids down on the sofa and deliver the news. One way or another, it’s an earthquake. Tears, sobbing, wounds. A new film flashes forward twenty, thirty years to look at the deep aftermath. It’s called “A.C.O.D.” – as in Adult Children of Divorce. If that sounds like a scary condition or syndrome, the film suggests it is. But it’s also a comedy – of people and personalities, hopes and fears and foibles shaped by divorce. Up next On Point: we talk with the director of "A.C.O.D.," about adult life after the childhood experience of relationship failure.

-- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Stuart Zicherman, co-writer and director of "A.C.O.D." (@StuZicherman)

Courtney Zazzali, Clinical Intake Coordinator at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. (@AckermanInstitu)

From Tom's Reading List

The Dissolve: A.C.O.D. (Review) -- "For most people, divorce remains a bummer, but it’s no longer inherently noteworthy or dramatic, at least not for outside observers. That puts the onus on 'A.C.O.D.' to find an interesting angle on the material. Its approach is to tell the story comedically, and well after the fact, through the grown children who have been shaped by their parents’ divorce."

New York Times: So, It’s Your Father, or Me. Decide. — "In the film, the divorcés feud, but the Zichermans agree that their divorce was remarkably amicable: they had regular family dinners and even took a vacation together after the breakup, which Stuart Zicherman found quite confusing. 'I’m very happy that you guys have such a good relationship,' he said, 'but there are times where it’d be much easier if you didn’t.'"