TL;DR – This was a delightfully fun look at trying to work your way through many layers of church bureaucracy.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Divorce Review –

If there is one area that deserves a little comedic exploration, it is religion. However, it might also be the most fraught area to explore. To pull it off, you have to have an intimate understanding of the subject matter because it needs to hit home in a realistic manner. Today, we look at a film that might do just that as it explores trying to get a divorce, sorry, an annulment, in Poland.    

So, to set the scene, Małgosia (Magdalena Popławska) and Jacek (Wojciech Mecwaldowski) have been divorced for a long time. So long that Małgosia has married again to Andrzej (Tomasz Schuchardt). Małgosia is struggling to relate to her daughter Ala (Oliwia Drabik), who has a defiant streak. But when her ex-husband Jacek wants to get re-married, he needs a favour. Because his new in-laws want a church wedding, and that means not just a civil divorce, but Andrzej needs the church to sign off on an annulment in an Ecclesiastical Court. It is clear that the marriage has broken down completely and irretrievably, and Małgosia has re-married, so it should be easy … right?    

Divorce is quite the farcical tale that delves into the heart of church bureaucracy, and no one does bureaucracy like the church. But if you are going to make a film like this, then your chemistry needs to be impeccable. Thankfully, Magdalena Popławska and Wojciech Mecwaldowski have a tremendous comedic bond as the amicable but slightly estranged exes. You can tell that Małgosia is only here to do a favour, only to get more frustrated when the church officials tell her that she is still married, even though she has been divorced for 17 years. There are these wonderful scenes where it is just the two of them riffing off each other while being interrogated by priests like Tomek (Michał Pawlik). Here, there are all levels of communication, and there was one look in particular that made me laugh very hard.

All of this is happening while Małgosia is trying to live her own life that is similarly unravelling while she is trying to do what is right. We have several threads pulling through the film, including how defending her divorce is affecting her current family, the nostalgia of visiting the past, and trying to find a way to connect her musical kids with a passion for music. While none have the same impact as our main narrative, they are good for filling up this world and providing some narrative framework for what could be taken away. There are a couple of moments when the scene construction does not do the school band justice, but I do always appreciate an orchestral version of Thrift Shop.

Trying to work your way through an unfeeling bureaucracy could have led to a very stodgy film, and there may have been a call to make a film like this. But I think the option to make it lighter might have been the better option because you can highlight the contradictions better if you have entered into a dance with your audience. One of the ways they do this is through the musical score, which always has a light, often mischievous feel to it. You get a lot of polkas and Tchaikovsky throughout, and it perfectly fits the vibe. It also does not outstay its welcome at a tight 90 minutes, wrapping up just when it was starting to lose some of its momentum.

In the end, do we recommend Divorce? To be clear, the movie, and not just the general concept of divorce which I am not sure you should be coming to a movie review website to get an opinion on. Well, it walked the tight line of being a strong exploration of the role of the church in a modern societal setting while also being a light comedy about a very odd family situation unravelling in front of your eyes. If you liked Divorce, we would recommend to you The Lost City.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Divorce yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Divorce
Directed by – Michał Chaciński & Radosław Drabik
Screenplay by – Michał Chaciński & Łukasz Światowiec
Based on – works by Titasa Lauciusa
Music by – Łukasz Targosz
Cinematography by – Mateusz Pastewka
Edited by – Magdalena Chowańska
Production/Distribution Companies – Gigant Films & Netflix
Starring – Magdalena Popławska, Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Tomasz Schuchardt, Oliwia Drabik, Michalina Łabacz, Aleksandra Grabowska, Michał Pawlik, Szymon Kuśmider & Dorota Piasecka with Artur Kozłowski, Stanisław Cywka, Grzegorz Kucias, Jakub Wieczorek & Adam Cywka
Rating – Australia: M