Rating: 
(out of 
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Grade: C-
In a traditional high school, the main choices for a foreign language course are Spanish and French; and anyone who would possibly choose Spanish over French is out of their mind. Le Divorce proves that French is certainly the language of love, and quite possibly the most beautiful language on Earth. Director James Ivory uses this to his advantage, and along with a magical French score, creates a movie that is lush with atmosphere. Too bad the same care given to the feel of the movie wasn’t given to the actual backbone: the story. Once passed the eloquent conjugations and appealing sonatas, you will realize as I did that Le Divorce is all smoke and mirrors.
As the trailer and tagline may suggest, Le Divorce is indeed about two American’s learning about love and life Parisian style. Unlike most movies dealing with love, Le Divorce has a very embittered view of the emotion. Most of the lessons learned by the leads Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts are difficult, and painful ones. Isabel Walker (Hudson) leaves from her home in California to go to Paris to be with her pregnant sister Roxanne (Watts) and her husband Charles-Henri. When she arrives, she finds that Charles-Henri has left Roxanne. Pregnant and alone, Roxanne is devastated that the man she still loves has run off with another woman. Roxanne’s mother-in-law, Suzanne is only supportive to the extent of admitting Charles-Henri’s bad timing (for leaving Roxanne whilst she carries his child). Meanwhile, Isabel has become the mistress of an older man, Edgar, who is also Suzanne’s brother. At this point, several other plot lines come into play, involving a painting owned by Roxanne and Isabel’s parents (played by Sam Waterson and Stockard Channing) that may become involved in the divorce settlement and an angry husband who begins to stalk Roxanne because Charles-Henri decided to run off with his wife, Magda.
I am familiar with the collaborating team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory only by name, and not by product. This is the first piece I have seen from the creators of such character studies as Howards End, The Remains of the Day, and A Room With a View. And frankly, if all of their pictures are as lacking as this, I don’t understand why their names light up the faces of Oscar voters. The first half of the movie is extremely frothy and shallow, yet admittedly fun. Who wouldn’t want to watch Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson frolic in Paris in the springtime? For Act 2 though, Ivory prefers to linger on pointless and trivial plot lines that ruins the triviality of the film! When the movie takes turns that lead to murder, suicide, stalking, and fine art all intertwine, you know you aren’t in Kansas...er...Paris, anymore.
Character development is also a problem for Le Divorce, as many characters are underdeveloped and not developed at all. Glenn Close appears in the movie several times, but the most we learn about her is her name. As for the main characters, Roxanne and Isabel have moments of growth, but I really wish we would have learned more about the pasts of these women, in order to understand their choices and personalities more.
In order to give a good performance, an actor must have a well-written character to start off with. This isn’t the case here, and as such, the performances of Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson suffer to an extent. Watts and Hudson are quality actresses though, as they showed in Mullholland Dr. and Almost Famous respectively, and this combined with wonderfully elegant dialogue make for better than average performances. The supporting cast of Le Divorce is quite vast, ranging from Bebe Neuwirth and Glenn Close to Matthew Modine and Sam Waterson. Although their roles are too small to capacitate much actual acting, they do mug for the camera well enough.
In promotion for this film, Bebe Neuwirth said that when her agent contacted her and asked if she would be interested in doing a Merchant-Ivory picture, she responded by saying “‘You don’t even need to send the script!’ Who wouldn’t want to do a Merchant-Ivory film in Paris?” I would imagine that had she received and read the script before signing on the dotted line, that her answer would have been a resounding “no.” Doing a Merchant-Ivory picture in Paris is tempting, I am sure; but a script this unsatisfying is not forgivable.
© 2003 Jacob Sproul
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