Television Reviews : ‘Necessary Parties’ Takes Children’s View of Divorce

A 14-year-old boy sues his divorcing parents in the two-part “Necessary Parties” (tonight and next Saturday at 7 p.m. on Channels 28 and 50, 8 p.m. on Channel 15), the season premiere for the PBS “Wonderworks” series.

The boy (Mark Paul Gosselaar) contends that he and his 6-year-old sister (Taylor Fry) are “necessary parties” in the legal action accompanying the divorce and that the impact of the marital split on them is significant enough for the court to intervene.

For $10, the boy hires a garage mechanic (Alan Arkin), who has a diploma from law school but hardly ever uses it, to represent him. This throws his parents (Julie Hagerty and Geoffrey Pierson) into a tizzy.

Whose divorce is it, anyway?

The script, by Arkin and his wife, Barbara Dana (who also appears in the film as the mechanic/lawyer’s longtime girlfriend), is written almost completely from the children’s point of view. The children’s attempts to cope are skillfully dramatized, but the cause of the rift between the parents remains much hazier than the symptoms of that rift. However, the writers don’t allow the children to completely sway the judge.

A few elements of the script are excessively cute, such as the character of the grandfather (Donald Moffatt) who supports the boy’s case. And scenes among the boy’s pals at school almost seem to be padded to fit the running time--which is something you expect from commercial networks instead of PBS.

But then there is no apparent reason why this movie couldn’t have been on a commercial network; its theme and execution (by director Gwen Arner) would fit perfectly into any of the networks’ TV-movie slots.