Helmed by director Noah Pritzker, marking his return to feature film directing after 2015’s Quitters, Ex-Husbands is a family drama film following the story of an aging man processing his divorce after a 35-year marriage. Ex-Husbands had its world premiere back in 2023 at the 71st San Sebastian Film Festival. The film was also screened at the 2023 Hamptons International Film Festival.
The film reunites Martin Scorsese’s After Hours cast members Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette, alongside a cast of Richard Benjamin, James Norton, and Miles Heizer.
Release Date
Directed by Noah Pritzker, Ex-Husbands opens in select US theaters on February 19, 2025.
Synopsis
Manhattan dentist Peter Pearce (Griffin Dunne) is facing a midlife crisis after his wife of 35 years (Rosanna Arquette) leaves him. On the spur of the moment, he books a trip to Tulum, Mexico, only to crash his son’s bachelor party. A warmhearted comedy drama co-starring Richard Benjamin, James Norton, and Miles Heizer.
“There’s a lot of biographical in the film. I think, you know, the primary inspiration for the movie were several things in my own life: my parents getting divorced and my own, thinking about getting married, being on the periphery of my brother’s wedding, seeing friends get married and divorced, and all of the stuff that happens in life,” says director Noah Pritzker about the inspiration of the film in an interview with el Hype. “And, out of that, I’m not quite sure how, but emerged this character of Peter Pierce. I’m not in my 60s and haven’t been divorced, but for some reason, that character became this container for all that I was thinking about and all of the questions I had been kicking around. And, meeting Griffin and Griffin’s willingness to take on this part brought an entirely new dimension to the project that never could have existed solely on the page.”
Reviews
Jonathan Romney in a Screen Daily review praised the film, writing, “As the title suggests, Noah Pritzker’s comedy Ex-Husbands is very much about men rather than women, but its depiction of modern male agonies carries its masculinity-in-crisis premise lightly. With a vibrantly charming lead from Griffin Dunne, and enough melancholic worldly wisdom to leaven the humour, Ex-Husbands is an accessible, ostensibly lightweight offering but one nevertheless carried off with expertise, intelligence and empathetic insight.”
David Jenkins from Little White Lies also gave the film a positive review, writing, “Ex-Husbands is a risk-averse comedy of generational malaise that still manages to charm via its easy interactions and doleful performances. – The best way to describe it is that it resembles a Noah Baumbach film, had Baumbach been writing while dosed on heavy sedatives which served to negate his blackly-cynical worldview.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Ex-Husbands.
