Le Divorce

Rating:
Summary: NOT a romantic comedy
Review: The trailers make LE DIVORCE look like a romantic comedy. They are dishonest. It is a drama, sort of. Not edgy. But creepy.

The characters are worthless. So there's no one to care about, no one to root for. The only "villain," if there is one, is social and legal problems in France. Dialogue is smarmy. There are no laughs at all.

And to make it work for America, the movie tacks on and ends (never mind the silly coda) with a VERTIGO scene, or maybe it's the belltower scene from BATMAN.

Fine actors like Bebe Neuwirth and Sam Waterston are utterly wasted. As was my two hours. SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS is superb. See that.

Rating:
Summary: so so romance but matthew modine? UGH!
Review: ok this is a little cute feature nicely filmed in paris. kate hudson and naomi watts are fine and glenn close is very radiantm and sparkling. but matthew modine comes outta nowhere playing a psycho stalking watts. i didn't read the novel nor do i intend to. it's just modine's performance puts a damper here and his standoff scene at the eiffel tower is just awful! bad role in an ok film.

Rating:
Summary: worthless, shallow, unfunny comedy
Review: there's simply nothing worse than humorless comedy. an unthrilling thriller is still at least a drama. an undramatic drama is usually still a comedy. but an unfunny comedy? that's nothing at all. as is this bloated piece of hollywood garbage.

it's dressed up with the merchant/ivory touch and a bit of gallic nonsense. but that can't mask the fact that the story is really about shallow, mean spirited, and selfish people.

a bit about the french culture. apparently anglophones think that there's nothing more to les francias than old paintings, wacky deserts, and lingere (bleu, blue BLEU . . . it's not funny). shame on us.

i've been to france several times, my wife is fluent in french, and take it from me, all this nonsense about french sophistication about desert and sex really is an embarrasing trivialization. the most interesting aspect of the french is that they provide a welcome intellectual counter point to AMERICAN power. we're the powerful and important ones (sadly).

apparently, that was lost on the merchant/ivory trivia machine that produced this drivel. that's why the french politician in the movie is a right winger who "want's to send the french to bomb countries he doesn't like." huh? did i step into bizarro world or something? even le pen doesn't want that. someone on the film crew really needs to read le monde.

to conclude, this is a thoughtless, pointless, shallow, and unattractive film, with an unattractive cast. (how is it that kate hudson has a job? oh that's right. she's a legacy admit like W.). please save your time and money and say mais non to le divorce.

Rating:
Summary: A candidate for the Zero Star Rating
Review: ...Don't wast your money. I left in the middle and fortunately got mine back. What a disappointment for Kate Hudson fans. I think Kate must have gotten a free trip to Paris and decided to phone in her performance.

Rating:
Summary: French Fries not allowed
Review: It looks to me like if this movie has been done just as a vendication bacause of the French political not involvemnet in recent world affair.
This movie looks like a stupid way to talk bad about France.
All the situations are built to show how bad French are, and it simply gets annoying and boring

Rating:
Summary: Is it just me?
Review: Once again, here's a classic example of a film that doesn't live up to its previews. The film is SLOOOOOOW, the "comedy" is sparse, and, while a wonderful cast has been assembled, their talents for the most part are wasted on this panting dog of a script, with the notable exception of Glenn Close who has been given the only intelligent part to play, which, alas, is merely ancillary to the story. Furthermore, the film is filled with hackneyed references to the French, like their supposed snobbiness, and their love of all things material, e.g. mistresses, designer handbags, scarves, lingerie and perfume. Honestly stated, the film mostly develops a theme of horrific sadness and pain, particularly for the Matthew Modine and Naomi Watts characters, the spurned spouses of the story. The industry should learn to be more honest with the public, when developing previews. This film is regrettably quite missable.

Rating:
Summary: Unconvincing drivel
Review: This movie was a complete disappointment. Personally, I was expecting a coming of age story, or rather a quirky divorce tale full of anger, humor and/or revenge, and in all honesty, the storyline fell quite flat. The actors, although a very impressive cast, were awful, the lines seemed forced and the timing of their reactions and commentary towards one another was a few seconds off.
Also, the effort to illustrate French culture was trite and clichéd. I kept waiting for something slightly interesting to happen (and even invented situations that could happen in my head), and then the movie was over.
Development of the characters was almost completely nonexistent, so you leave the film not really knowing who you just watched, or care at all what happened to them in the slightest bit. Even Kate Hudson's character, Isabelle, who appears the most throughout the film, we know barely anything about (for example-her background, or why she could pick up her life to move in with her sister in Paris). Naomi Watts' performance was equally bland, and although I felt that I should feel empathy towards this abandoned pregnant wife, I couldn't muster up any feeling at all towards her.
Then, towards the end, at a pathetic attempt for drama and suspense, a random suicide, murder, and a few mental breakdowns are thrown in for good measure. But even these are out of the blue, and leave you with a perplexed look of "why did that happen?" and "do i really care that it did?"
The last movie I saw of Kate Hudson's that affected me this way was "Dr. T and the Women", another inane superficial flick that showcased big name actors and actresses in order to sell movie tickets. I can't believe I fell for that ruse again.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: For a long time now, I have heard the accusation fly that Merchant Ivory films are not quite current and only worth going to see for the costumes, the settings in spectacular houses and at least one sumptuously filmed dinner party. While there is a whole lot of eating, drinking and chatting in le Divorce, there is so much more.

I will never forget finding out more than two years ago that James Ivory was set to direct one of the best of the previous year's novels and have not been disappointed by the wait. I could not imagine the film cast, photographed or directed differently and while the adaption is true to the spirit of the novel, circumstance has left the finished film somewhat more true, more French, more appropriate than the original (Merchant Ivory were forced to rewrite the Euro-Disney scene that featured Cinderella's Castle so as to take place at the Eiffel Tower - an improvement on the original if there ever was one!). I do not want to pick apart the plot any more, but will say that you will adore the film regardless of whether or not you read the book.

With le Divorce, Merchant Ivory have set their name in plaster; a hundred years from now people will not think of them only as the people who adapted the Forster novels of a century before to another medium, but what they have always been - truly independent film-makers who produced the sort of films that Hollywood could not and dared not try to make.

Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Delightful movie
Review: I saw "Le Divorce" in a movie screening event last week. I haven't read the book. But I like this movie a lot. The name of the movie sounds serious, but the movie is actually filled with funny scenes throughout while delivering some philosophical messages as well. It doesn't stop poking fun of the French, the American and even Kate Hudson's flat-chest.

Noami Watts (as Roxy) delivered a splendid performance as a pregnant wife abandoned by her French husband (a total jerk). You can't take your eyes off Noami Watts when she's on the screen. During the movie, I think the Le Tour painting is a symbolism of Roxy (Noami Watts). While Roxy is an American, she considers her roots and home in France, not in America. But her French mother-in-law doesn't think Roxy acts like French at all. The French painting wasn't appreciated by the French (considered a fake)during its stay at the Paris apartment shared by Roxy & her French husband. The Lourve appraiser considers it a hoax, a mere imitation of the authentic French artist. But once the painting is removed from the apartment, the British Christie's appraises it as a real Le Tour worth millions of pounds/dollars. Likewise, Roxy, once out of this bad marriage ("out of the apartment") finds a better man (the French attorney) who treasures and values her for what she is (unlike the French ex-husband who trashes her). Meanwhile, the Le Tour painting was auctioned for over 4 million euros (much, much higher than Christie's initial appraisal). Note, the auction host introduces the Le Tour painting as having certain defects on the arms, on the upper portion of the painting etc, just like Roxy, it may have certain physical or "emotional" scars, yet there were astute takers eager to get it for a handsome price for the painting's true worth. As a matter of fact, just like the Le Tour painting, Roxy represents some admirable attributes: purity, steadfastness and maturity (you can see the contrast between Roxy and her slutty sister Isabel).

Kate Hudson was a delight with funny scenes here & there (even a scene at the lingerie store bluffing about her chest-size), my friend couldn't understand why she's attracted to the 60-ish French uncle-in-law, but hey, older men represents power, money, luxury life styles. Kate (Isabel) is the opposite of her sister Roxy. Isabel is sort of a slut, she sleeps with the young French guy on the first day they met. She sleeps with the French uncle for expensive gifts (the Kelly handbag, expensive lunches & dinner, fancy opera). But in the end, Isabel realizes this cannot be sustained, she's merely a toy for the old sleazy French uncle. Glen Close (Olivia Pace) is the living example of an old toys of the old French uncle.

Overall, I like this movie a lot. It's a delightful movie.

Rating:
Summary: Make Mine Mink
Review: James Ivory goes outside the normal realm of his film subject matter with an adaptation of Diane Johnson's very contemporary "Le Divorce." Though this may seem like an odd choice of subject matter for the team of Ivory and Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, on second thought, it isn't. Because once again, as in "Jefferson in Paris" or "Remains of the Day," Ivory and company is once again attracted to material in which we have characters from another culture, another country, another social strata mixing it up/clashing with those of the home culture: as in "Le Divorce" two American girls loose in Paris sampling all that is good about France: the culture, the food, the leather goods and shoes and of course, the men.
Naomi Watts plays Roxy: a pregnant, stressed, soon to be divorced sister to Kate Hudson's Isabel, who has just dropped out of Film School. Both go to Paris for a respite from their supposedly harried lives in the USA and are, at least on the surface, definitely not looking for romance. But what would a romantic comedy be without Romance and more to the point sex?
Ivory has directed with a very light hand and with his tongue planted very firmly in his cheek. The physical production is first rate but this is no surprise in an Ivory film: the man knows how and where to spend the money so that it has the most impact. Hudson, Watts and Stockard Channing are tres charmant and luminous as always...and by film's end, much wiser.
"Le Divorce" is a French kiss to France at a time when most Americans do not feel terribly pre-disposed to hug, much less kiss a French person. But Ivory has the talent and the wherewithal emotionally to keep the proceedings as light as a Napoleon yet world aware enough to show how serious the underside of a burnt soufflé can be.