On general release on DVD & Blu-ray from Mon 06 Jan

Scott McGehee, David Siegel / USA / 2012 / 99 mins

With divorces increasingly commonplace, the problem of how to divide time spent with any offspring can often be the most contentious aspect of the split. Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s tender and sincere drama looks at how difficult these break ups can be from the wide-eyed innocence of the child’s perspective.

Unable to speak amicably, Susanna (Julianne Moore) and Beale (Steve Coogan) have to rely on court proceedings to decide on the custodial rights of their daughter Maisie (Onata Aprile). However, with both parents so wrapped up in their professional occupations, Maisie begins to form a stronger familial bond with her parent’s new significant others.

Based on Henry James’ novel, although screenwriters Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright’s self-involved procreators feel like the extreme end of the bad parenting scale (without becoming abusive), the situations they put Maisie through are uncomfortably realistic: early pick up from school to arrive before the other, bad mouthing the other to Maisie and constantly shouting in her presence. The few school scenes show a marked difference in Maisie’s mood; happy when surrounded by friends and caring adults rather than the competition for affection awaiting her at home. Also depressingly believable, is how Beale’s battle for custody is more about giving two fingers to his ex, than out of a desire to socialise with his daughter; seen in his constant offloading of childcare duties onto new wife Margo (Joanna Vanderham).

Moore is excruciating as the washed-up rock singer, swearing and smoking in front of Maisie, unable (or unwilling) to see how bad an influence she is. Aprile’s demure youngster is passively evocative, saying more about the importance of childcare with silence at her repeated abandoning, than the copious arguments. The taxi rides between households, where each adult can catch up with Maisie and get the gossip on the other, grimly underpin the disjointedness of divorce for any young child. What this film sadly but truthfully shows, is just because you’ve entered into parenthood, doesn’t make you a parent.