The Divorce Poster

The Divorce (2003)

Drama | Comedy 
Rayting:   4.9/10 11K votes
Country: USA
Language: English | French
Release date: 29 August 2003

French vs. American social customs and behaviors are observed in a story about an American visiting her Frenchman wed sister in Paris.

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lipardom 1 April 2004

Have you ever seen a movie wondering about where it is heading to? And worst than that, after you finished watching it , you still felt the same? If you know what I am talking about you do not want to see this movie and end up feeling like you wasted two hours of your life. The story goes nowhere because it tries to explain so many stories that at the end you feel that the movie has the wrong name. Despite all the stories it goes around are resolved at the end, it makes you feel you're watching a different movie from the one you started watching. The stories are linked in such a weak form that you would have preferred them to be completely separated. Not even recommended for a nothing-to-do-Sunday-afternoon.

evago 21 August 2003

Fmovies: There are a lot of comments here about people not liking this movie. I just saw it and I loved it. I think it's very subtle, though. It's more fun to watch if you have a prior understanding of, or at least introduction to, the French lifestyle. It's a great satire on both the French and American cultures and their nuanced differences. Naomi Watts was great in her role, and Kate Hudson was pretty good as well. I have to say I liked Leslie Caron as the French "mere" best though :) All said, I thought this was a wonderfully directed and somewhat quaint satire-comedy- drama. Another good work from Merchant and Ivory!

RJBurke1942 26 April 2008

Romantic dramas and comedies are not usually my thing, although I admit they can be interesting. Despite myself, I found I liked The Bridges of Madison County (1995), for example. So also with this one: a nice mixture of irony, wry humour, and culture clash (American vs French) all topped off with some murder and financial skullduggery.

There's a large cast of characters, but I'll confine most of my comments to the four main players: Kate Hudson as Isabel Walker, Naomi Watts as her sister, Roxeanne, married to Charles-Henri played by Melvil Poupaud and Isabel's aging lover, Edgar Cosset, played with exquisite panache by Theirry Lhermitte.

The story begins as Charles-Henri is leaving Roxeanne (and his daughter) for another woman, Magda (Rona Hartner), just as Isabel is arriving, from USA, to assist Roxeanne. Essentially, Charles-Henri wants a divorce, but Roxeanne refuses. And for much of the resulting interaction between the couple, that impasse remains. In the meantime, Isabel settles in with Roxeanne and, through the family connections meets Edgar (who is Charles-Henri's uncle) and agrees to become his lover.

The divorce battle gets worse as Roxeanne discovers the inequalities that exist in French law regarding marriage settlements. Relationships sour even more between the two, and now compounded by the growing dispute about a La Tour painting owned by Roxeanne's family but which Charles-Henri now half-claims as part of any divorce settlement. Further drama ensues when Tellman (Mathew Modine) shows up, ranting to Roxeanne about Charles-Henri's seduction of Magda, Tellman's wife.

And, in and out of that mess, Isabel becomes more involved with Edgar, much to the annoyance of Edgar's family – but, trust the French to be very civilized about Edgar's affairs – and the arrival of Roxeanne's parents and brother (Sam Waterston, Stockard Channing and Thomas Lennon, respectively) who have come to support Roxeanne during her difficult time – and, just quietly, to help torpedo Charles-Henri's grab for the La Tour art piece, now valued at multi-millions.

The resolution of all these affairs is competently contrived with many scene changes as the plot interweaves between the two couples, one seeking divorce, the other eventually seeking a divorce of a different kind: as Edgar says to Isabel, finally: "I'm too old for you." And, through the latter half of the story, the American and French families intermingle, giving rise to some delicious moments of that humour and irony already mentioned.

The denouement is predictable, but still enjoyable, and marred only by Mathew Modine's somewhat overacted deranged husband; still, his intervention is instrumental and provides the only real suspenseful moments in an otherwise conventional divorce story. The use of Glenn Close, playing Olivia Pace, as a quasi-mentor for Isabel assists with the story development with Edgar and adds some further touches of irony; however, it added little to the story, as a whole.

As you might expect from an Ivory production, the cinematography, editing, and sound are top notch. And the script, although also somewhat predictable, still shows some moments of brilliance; the lunches and dinners with both families in situ were, for me, a real joy to savour. The acting, apart from Modine, is uniformly very good to excellent. This was the first time I'd seen Kate Hudson on the screen and I think she did well opposite Lhermitte. Watts is always worth watchi

LOCKWOOT 6 December 2004

The Divorce fmovies. I think this could have been an interesting film. Instead, it shows the French as being close-minded, rude and arrogant with no concern about other people's feelings. The American sisters are annoying in their lack of backbone. Instead of standing up for themselves or each other, they simply lie down and let husbands, boyfriends and in-laws humiliate them. Their last name should be doormat. The scenery is both beautiful and breathtaking. The restaurant scenes gives us some insight on the French artfulness of food. Dining is not just a daily routine but an adventure of taste, color and texture. Even when insulting, the French language is a pleasure to hear. Sadly, the bad heavily outweighs the good in this movie.

jbass99 13 February 2005

Have not read the novel, but the movie itself is slush (not having read the novel I can't say whether to blame the author).

Supposedly, the story explores the values gulf between America and France, with sex the American taboo and money the French taboo. Sadly, the greatest taboo in this movie is common sense, which seems trapped at the midpoint between the two, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, several miles beneath the surface at the base of the mid-Atlantic rift.

Every time we think something that makes less sense couldn't happen, it does. Characters act stupidly or self-destructively, doing the kind of nasty or narcissistic things that would make them the villain of most any other putative comedy of manners, only to have their clueless behavior transcended (to the downside) in the very next scene.

The only real surprise in the film is that it was made by the same folks who gave us "A Room With A View" and its distinguished successors. Here, that body of work culminates in an anticlimactic thud, as if obscurity were the thing the production team had been seeking to perfect. (Thank goodness they have another film coming out soon.) Rather than engaging the audience, "Le Divorce" is so absurd that about halfway through, it joins the group of films that are so bad you watch to the end just to hoot at the screen.

Our antipathy to the characters is particularly amazing because there is not a bad performance. Most of the excellent cast is quite good, and I was very happy to see Leslie Caron looking so beautiful and healthy. One gets the feeling the actors chose the project because it was a Merchant Ivory film. The only betrayal we end up caring about is that their faith led them here.

The film looks great, yet the script makes us groan. Other than the sister in law and the young daughter of the divorce of the title, the characters are archetypes. The most distinctive personality belongs to a handbag, and the rest of them become so annoying they seem to deserve what they get. The genuine tragedies -- we see them coming two miles away, not just one -- don't carry much impact because these so clearly aren't real people.

"Le Divorce" was meant to be funny, but it plays out as a 90-minute Seinfeld stripped of comedy or plot. The only laughs come from the predictability and unbelievability of events, and the degree to which we don't care about anyone they happen to. Merchant Ivory have, and will, do a lot better than this.

Thomas-White2 29 October 2008

I keep trying to figure out why this movie is rated so low. I thought it was very good, and that was before I started reading the book -- well more than halfway through, I think it's a faithful adaptation that delivers the storyline and the theme of the novel very well. I tend now to read the novel a movie is based on after I've seen the film, since my experience has taught me that doing the reverse always leads to disappointment in the movie. This was not an error with this title. I think all the casting, all the acting, and especially the direction, were well done.

It seems to me that somehow viewers were expecting too much from the movie. My philosophy is that expectations are arranged disappointments, and I try not to expect anything going in. I do admit that I had some doubts when it seemed that Merchant-Ivory were doing what looked like a light comedy, but there is much more to the book and film than that, first of all, and secondly, why should accomplished filmmakers not move around the genres? Look at Kubrick and The Archers, just to name two, who did so and did it successfully. I wonder how many people went in expecting "Howards End" and thus were disappointed, not in the film but by their own expectations. It's not fair to the filmmakers. Expecting "Le Divorce" to be on par with "Howards End" was like expecting "Howards End" to have the same effect as "Shakespeare Wallah" -- two completely different experiences. It's entirely possible, in fact, that Merchant-Ivory might not have done as good a job on "Le Divorce" had they not made "Howards End" first. It's a matter of process. My point being, that each film must be judged on its own merits.

I've read a couple of comments and message board posts that complain about how the movie makes French people look -- arrogant, garrulous, etc. I think that's overstating a generalization. The movie makes THESE PARTICULAR French people look arrogant and garrulous, because they are -- and devious and self-centered and boorish. But to leap to the conclusion that the movie is making a statement about all French people is patently ridiculous. "The views expressed by the characters in this movie are entirely their own".

On the other hand, one has to remember that Diane Johnson, who wrote the book and a number of books about the culture since, spends half her time in France. She does't take her subjects lightly; she's an intelligent, thoughtful, and though-provoking writer, and I would urge the people who find the movie too subjective to go to its source and read the book. They will find that the book is written from the point of view of one person, and is about the relations between two families -- not two complete cultures. Just because people say something about a culture does't make it true. Perception itself is subjective. In the book (I can't recall if this occurs in the film, I'll have to see it again) Uncle Edgar, perhaps the most sensible character, himself speaks those words that send a shiver of annoyance up my spine: "You Americans. You think..." As if we all think the same thing (and we all know THAT isn't true!). It shows that subjectivity is a common human trait, that we look at the world with our own particular set of blinders, filter our thought through our cultural stance, although I think that perhaps French thought is more synthesized and common than American thought which is, by nature of the population, more

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