AllMovie

Picking Up the Pieces is a TV movie firmly locked in mid-1980s sensibilities: beware your husband, ladies, he's pond scum. Margot Kidder, a high school guidance counselor and mother of two, is the wife of wealthy surgeon and all-around heel David Ackroyd. After 17 years of emotional abuse, Kidder agrees with Ackroyd that divorce is the answer. She returns home from work to find the house stripped and her valuables gone; they've been seized by her husband, who is perfectly within his legal rights because their state has no community property laws. As Kidder battles her ex in court, she struggles to regain her own self-esteem. James Farentino costars in Picking Up the Pieces as the compassionate widower with whom Kidder finds happiness.