Customer Reviews

Le Divorce

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

J'ai A do re ce film. Original dans l'ensemble. Qui fait rever. J'ai aime aussi la bande sonore avec Carla Bruni.

Excuse me if I sound too harsh, but I have to say this. James Ivory film was never so humorless and pointless as "Le Divorce," wasting everything and everyone who must have gathered here simply because of the name of the director. Sorry that I have to say so, but it was a painful experience to sit through the two hours watching this mess.

The premise based on the bestselling novel of the same title is promising. Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson are American sisters. Naomi is married to a French, who turned out unfaithful at the beginning of the film, and we see him leaving the apartment in Paris, where Kate arrives at the exact moment when he ditches (when his wife is pregnant). Naomi's character Roxeanne refuses to divorce (for no other reason than ... well, we are not allowed to know), while Kate's sister Isabel falls in love with a guy (and husband), watching him in a show on TV.

Now, it should be the time for hilarious culture-clash comedy, or at least some good romantic comedy against the backdrop of the beautiful city of Paris. And Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson can really act, as you know, plus you get delightful Stockard Channing as their mom flying all over from America. You also get Stephen Fry, Bebe Neuworth, Jean-Marc Barr, Leslie Caron, and even Glenn Close.

And what happened? A mess. A real mess. Don't be mistaken, please. The photography is great, showing the charms of the city. And I do not particlulary disagree with the descriptions of the French. Well, they may not like talking about money; they do not care much about infidelty; no, no, I just don't know these things, but the film suggests so.

The real problem is its characters, or the way the film shows them on the screen. In short, you can relate to none of them. French may act like this, but the problem is, THE FILM FAILS TO MAKE THEM CHARMING. It is quite unfunny to see a pregnant woman deserted unless the hubby in case has some redeeming quality. In "Le Divorce" there is none. And you see wrist-cutting; stalker, and murder. What do these things mean?

Or see Kate Hudson. It is quite disheartening for us to see a grown-up American female (and played by Kate 'Penny Lane' Hudson') fall in love with a cardboard character, simply because he looks great and speaks French. And it seems that Kate thinks he is gorgeous (actually, he is not) and marvellous even after she knows that she is just one of many affairs. If this is a typical case of love in France, the film should be dealt with more delicate touch and convincing characters.

The sub-plot about the painting is just as uninteresting as the main one, and the film, with so many great locations, adds up to nothing. It's all about the fantastic costumes and hairduts, but the they can hardly cover up the fact that "Le Divorce" is awfully empty and its values are quite dated. Avoid it.

The trailer for this movie looked so appealing, and then I saw it. All this picture led me to think is that Kate Hudson is one of the luckiest young celebrities in show business. She can coast on the fact that Goldie Hawn is her mother and make movies that are 10 times worse than any bad flick her mother has ever made.
All Le Divorce really adds up to is another chance to shoot scenes with Kate in bed--never mind who with--period. I don't hate her as an actress, but her exceptional roles are few and far between. In fact, you could confuse her with Heather Graham.
Also, shame on Leslie Caron for being a party to this lousy endorsement of kept women in modern day France. After her portrayal of Gigi, a favorite heroin who revolts against that sort of sexism in early 1900's France, it's a slap in the face to see her play a mother-in-law who's willing to put up with it!
There's no delicate way to sum up this cinematic turkey: Le Divorce makes moi want to vomitte!

I'm not american and i don't know how difficult could be the relations between USA and France, but what I know is: This is the worst picture I ever saw!!!
It's a shame to watch excelent actors work on a project with no sense. Maybe the book is good but the movie is stupid. I like romantic movies but this movie sucks.

Excuse, I'm angry >(

I won't speak for the book because I haven't read it, and I'm not French. If I was French, however, I imagine that I might feel insulted. The movie seems to scream at the viewer that the French are evil, gauche, and utterly frivolous, while Americans are victims, innocent and pure. While neither can be the case, it is ridiculous to taut such views.

The characters in the movie as well as their interactions, comings and goings make no sense. No one has a reason for doing what they do or going where they go. Kate Hudson's character falls in love with two men that she barely knows and is in no way a support to her sister whose French husband mysteriously runs off with a Russian woman. The evil French husband then does all he can to be utterly unfair to poor Roxy (his wife). He wants to take her children, her family's painting, ie everything he can for reasons that the movie does not go into.

What bothers me more than ridiculous people doing ridiculous things for ridiculous reasons is when movie writers have cardboard cutout people do ridiculous things for reasons that are kept hidden from us. From the scene where Kate Hudson gets a strange haircut for seemingly no reason, I simply lost interest in the story.

Also, the writers were trying to elicit emotions where their wasn't sufficient development for there to be any. Examples were the murder of the cheating husband and his girlfriend, the selling of the painting, the suicide of Roxy, the mad gun battle on the Eiffel Tower, etc. Need I go on? Save your time and your money.

I am a fan of Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. And, since I saw the brilliant films they produced in the 80s such as "Room with a View", "Maurice" and "Howard's End", I am also a fan of Merchant/Ivory as a writing and producing team. This film is not a bad film, but it moves along too slowly and didn't have me completely entralled like their earlier films

The story centers around two sisters, one (played by Hudson), who goes to Paris to be with her pregnant sister (played by Watts). As she arrives, her sister's husband, an unfaithful scoundrel is literally walking out of her life. To further complicate things, Hudson's character becomes involved with her brother-in-law's uncle, a handsome and charming 50 something French man, who has worked his way through a long a line of young ladies like Hudson, an addiction he can't seem to break.

There are lots of interesting people in this film such as Glenn Close, Stockard Channing and Sam Waterson but they are not given much to do. And I have to admit, the character, Magda, drove me NUTS. She wasn't in the film that much but every time it showed her, her voice and manner drove me out of my mind! She was completely annoying!

If you want a really good Merchant/Ivory film pick one of the three I mentioned earlier (or perhaps, Remains of the Day). Want a good Naomi Watts film...I recommend "The Ring". This film I only recommend marginally. I hope Merchant/Ivory hits their stride again and really gives their fans something to rave about!

Okay. This is NOT a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy (which I happen to be a fan of), but it is still interesting and worth seeing. If you remember that it IS a Merchant-Ivory production, you will not be so surprised that it is not fluffy and light. (Nothing wrong with that; "light" and "heavy" movies each have their time and place.)

The thing that I think of most fondly about this movie is the actors themselves. I would never have thought to cast a movie with Sam Waterston and Stockard Channing playing parents to Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts (although Stockard is Naomi's step-mother, in the movie, I think). Seeing the four of them, in addition to the impressive actor who plays Kate & Naomi's brother (who co-starred with Kate in HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS), interact was a great pleasure. I also really enjoyed Kate & Naomi's one-on-one scenes, although I wish Kate's character (Isabel) had been more emotionally supportive of Naomi's character (Roxanne) and less focused on her affair with Edgar. But, I guess it is more realistic that sometimes people let themselves get overwhelmed with their own dramas and forget to keep up with their loved ones' emotional crises.

The contrasting of American and French perspectives on life, divorce, infidelity, and "good taste" in general is interesting, although it can be annoying when one realizes how snobbish one culture tends to be about another culture. Such is life.

One last point I want to make, which I think is being missed by some other reviewers here, is that Roxanne (and to a slightly lesser extent, Isabel) had a great EMOTIONAL attachment to the painting, not just an interest in the money it was worth. If most of us think back on our childhoods (or look at old photographs or home movies), we can remember the reassuring, constant presence of certain furnishings in the home we grew up in. One person may fondly remember a sofa or love seat that they sat on with their first boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. Another person might remember the wallpaper in the kitchen that was so distinctive to that time and place, and the happy memories it evoked. And another might remember a chiming clock that you got so used to hearing in your home that you almost didn't even notice it, but yet you felt safe and contented knowing it was always there. So, I think Naomi's character had a nostalgic, emotional attachment to that painting (especially since it was of the saint who watches over young girls). I wanted to make sure that this was pointed out, in case a viewer wasn't watching closely enough to see how crushed Roxanne was when the painting was being wrapped up and taken away. She seems to only really reconcile herself to the loss of it in her life when they decide to honor it in a way that benefits others.

I recommend this movie to people who are interested in the differences between American and French cultures, as well as those interested in movies about love and the loss of it.

The joy of this film is not the comedy (though one cannot help but laugh at the interactions of the vividly drawn characters in this film); this film's redemption comes in the sharp eye it takes to the relationships and the differences in the French and American people.

In the film, Americans are as comicly cheap, gauche ("It's so perfectly convenient, why wouldn't I want to carry it everywhere?", Kate Hudson says of a ten thousand dollar bag), and laidback, as the French are hysterically haughty ("Sugar grains? How original!", the French Mother insults the American daughter-in-law), frivolous, and decadent.

I think that many went into this movie looking for the wrong thing. This is not the typical Kate Hudson romantic comedy, this is not some crass slapstick routine about an American fumbling around in Europe, this is a sophisticated look at a head-butting of American attitudes and French ideals.

Visually, the film delights with quick peekings into not only French cuisine, landscape, architecture, and art, but also with disturbing images of sadness and pain. In one scene, Kate Hudson walks into her sister's apartment to find her slumped over a couch bleeding to death.

Sure, the movie does jump around, but it had a lot of ground to cover: for those interested in a quick, brainless, formulaic presentation of boy-meets-girl plotting, this movie will disappoint; but for those who are interested in a well thought out, yet charming, juxtaposition of the modern French and today's American, this film will go down as a contemporary screen gem.

(And of the title, Le Divorce: while much of the movie does thematically circle around the idea of divorce, it's actually quite ironic the rigidity of the French idea of divorce and the American. While the French still exhibit the legendary Flaubertian attitudes toward infidelity, their ideas about divorce aren't as capricious as the American. And in many ways this movie details not only the literal divorce of the sister and her husband, but of a divorce,a separation, an end to the romantic notion Americans have about the French. While Kate may indulge herself with a French lover thoughtlessly, she finds that she too must divorce herself from that ideal. The family must divorce itself of its prized French heirloom. Even the French have to divorce themselves of the idea of the victimless affair. This film operates on so many human levels, it's surprising that so few actually "got it.")

For once the reviewers are right- this is a really poorly structured film with drops of melodrama and an occasional poem here and there. 1st of all- I like movies about poets and f-ed up artists- I think they're funny. But this one was not in the least bit funny, or entertaining, or even so bad it was funny. The characters were pretentious and underdeveloped. Pretense is fine if you are trying to make fun of these types of people, but the characters weren't even over the top enough to be funny. Naomi Watts slits her wrists while she's pregnant, and then her hubby falls off the Eiffel Tower. We never really know why they're devorcing, nor do we care. And we spend a lot of the time marveling with the characters over this painting, where they all ooh and ahh, but nothing is really said. And then there is Matthew Modine, screaming and stealing umbrellas and making a scene at a poetry reading. I was so bored during this film that I did laundry, folded it all and put it all away in the other room while the movie was still playing. And I don't think I missed a thing. Also, the advertising is deceptive- by the cover you think it's going to be a romantic comedy, but it's not romantic and it's not funny. The characters aren't real enough to be a drama, nor are they over the top enough to be a melodrama. I don't know what this film is, or what it was trying to be. All I can say regarding it is Le Pew!

First of all, I don't know if what I'm going to tell is the same in all countries, especially in the USA, but being in Spain I had never seen such a lie with this film.

Last year watching the trailers of movies coming soon, I watch the spot of "Le Divorce" and I was absolutely convinced it should be a comedy. Even the comments of the off-voice was sort-of-a-joke: "Le Divorce: if you say it in French, it sounds more sexy".

When watching this film at home, I found it very suprising that dialogs didn't have any point of joke, and that the plot was only around who should be owning a picture, not a divorce in its own sense. But, at least, I finished watching it and my sensation was not bad. I thought it was a decent film (3-stars or so) and somewhat recommendable.

But some hours later, I discovered it was a real lie. I was sold a comedy film but it was only a melodrama or so. I was feeling bad like being cheated!

Therefore, I will say it's a great deception, and even both actresses do not carry on with their work properly. It's "watchable" but not very "hearable".