Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

ravitchn Two hours of painful nonsense in which every cliches about each country is expressed by someone of the other country. The only good cliche, perhaps too recent to be a cliche, is that Americans cannot commit crimes of passion; they only kill for money and drugs. Those who know the French know that they are far more materialistic than Americans, far more addicted to drugs so long as they are prescribed by doctors, who normally even prescribe medications for problems which yoghurt could solve more cheaply and more deliciously.Those who have read Balzac, Flaubert, Choderlos de la Clos, Diderot -- any French writer -- does not need this movie to reveal the sexual proclivities and temptations of the French. Nor do they need information about the French bourgeoisie whose glory came in 1789 and was pretty well gone within a year or two. All the vices of the pre-revolutionary aristocracy were as nothing compared to those of the 19th-century and 20th-century bourgeoisie. The Americans in this film are portrayed as naive and trusting while the French trust no one not in their own family -- a very wise policy perhaps but not one to make you enamored of them. I still like French food very much and hate the fact that the French make it. But then I recall that the French until the reign of Catherine de Medicis in the mid 16th century who brought cuisine and culture and coture were true barbarians and ate the same crap that the British ate: meat stewed in beer and other such delicacies. The French are very contemptuous not only of Americans but of their neighbors. A French tourist guide to Italy will tell you that the Lombards are good at this and the Neapolitans good at that -- as if Italy were Africa or some other godforsaken place. It is a pity we came to France's rescue in 1917. It's a crime that the French could not persevere against the Germans in 1940 when they had a much bigger army than the Germans and plenty of equipment. But they decided that it was better to hitch their wagon to the Third Reich than to fight. In WWI they fought bravely and successfully and didn't really need us; Woodrow Wilson was a fool to enter the war.

SnoopyStyle Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) is visiting her sister Roxeanne de Persand (Naomi Watts) in Paris. Roxeanne's husband Charles-Henri is leaving his pregnant wife for another woman. Poet Olivia Pace (Glenn Close) hires Isabel to assist her on her tour. Isabel has a very French affair with the married Yves. A family painting given to Roxeanne is discovered to be more valuable than first thought. Charles-Henri insists on a divorce and splitting everything including the painting. Tellman (Matthew Modine) is the husband of Charles-Henri's mistress.Nobody cares. The only rooting interest is Roxeanne because she actually shows a beating heart. Charles-Henri is played with such a robotic unfeeling manner that it's questionable how they ever got married. Even Roxeanne as a character is destroyed after her suicide attempt. She does a 180 and turns into her family where she's sipping wine and discussing alimony with them over lunch. There is no passion in this thing that survives. This is a stereotype of two elitist cultures.The French are callous cold-hearted about love. There is no passion. Love is transactional. The Americans are almost as cold-hearted about love. They care more about the money. They care more about the painting than the marriage. Tellman is the only person with consistent passion and he's a madman. None of it makes for compelling drama. It's a movie about cold people that leaves me cold.There is a light comedic tone throughout the movie but there is no comedy to be had. It is an infuriating movie. It could have survived as a drama only about Roxeanne's divorce. I rather not spend any time watching the very boring affair with Isabel.

Desertman84 Le Divorce is a romantic comedy based on Diane Johnson's bestselling novel about contemporary world of Americans in Paris.Kate Hudson lights up the screen as Isabel, a film school dropout who jets off to Paris when her pregnant step-sister Roxy,played by Naomi Watts,is abandoned by her husband. Stockard Channing, Glenn Close, Matthew Modine and Bebe Newirth co-star in this screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory,the film's director.When Isabel receives word that her pregnant poetess sister Roxy has been left by her philandering French husband, artist Charles-Henri de Persand ,she offers her help and moral support. As the depressive Roxy struggles with the separation proceedings, Isabel takes a job with author Olivia Pace and has a fling with the bohemian Yves. But things get complicated when the younger, more impudent sister decides instead to pursue Charles' uncle, the snooty, married diplomat Edgar, and when a mysterious man starts stalking Roxy. Eventually, the rest of the plucky Walker clan has to come to the aid of the siblings. This is an insignificant film with a passably entertaining premise that goes wildly to hell the instant it strays from its comic ideals with brief, unsatisfying detours into the realms of art and high-end lingerie.It was definitely an uneven film except that one can truly appreciate the performance of the cast particularly Hudson and Watts.

howie73 It beggars belief that James Ivory would conceive of such a film in 2003. It all feels like a soft-focus Eurotrash/American melodrama from the 1980s, with its soft-focus lensing and European clichés. The acting leaves a lot to be desired and is often very wooden and awkward as the European actors strive to be convincing in the English language - Melville Poppaud in particular is miscast as the cheating husband.Not even Naomi Watts can save the day. She is also miscast alongside her screen sister Kate Hudson. Both are above the material but fail to rise above the clichéd and mediocre script.Le Divorce is a pitiful embarrassment and belongs on 1980s TV as a mini-series rather than a fully-fledged feature film.