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Le divorce (2003) Plus avec IMDbPro »

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33 utilisateurs sur 39 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
A genuine Georges De la Tour painting!, 6 février 2006

Auteur : jotix100 de New York

It's amusing to read some of the comments in this page of IMDb. Most postings place the blame for what they perceive as the failure of this picture on James Ivory, Ismael Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the successful creative team of some of the best movies of recent years. In fact, the sin they appear to have committed was to adapt the Diane Johnson's novel about the contrasts she has always written about between two cultures that should be more similar: the French and American, yet, as we read in the book, and now watched in the film, they are not as close as one would imagine.

First, the French one sees portrayed in the film belong to the high classes that are imbued in their traditions, savoir faire, their sense of style and being B.C.B.G., something the Americans, being somehow a new society without those traditions cannot comprehend. Money is a taboo subject to be spoken at all by the wealthy French, whereas in America the flaunting of having made fortunes and having millions is an everyday subject for the higher ups.

Ms. Johnson, who has lived in France for quite some time, is an observant of that society. In her many books about life in that country, the study in the contrasts she sees, are at center stage and the mixing of Americans with the French bourgeoisie produces surprising results that make the reading of her novels more compelling for the joy they bring to her readers.

Isabel, the young American, arriving to stay with her sister Roxanne, takes easily to the new surroundings. In doing so, she completely disregards the established rules when she enters in a liaison with Marc-Henri, who sees the occasion as one for amusing himself for a while. Roxanne, on the other hand, soon discovers what she is against when her French husband decides to ask her for a divorce. Little has prepared her for the consequences that go with it and the archaic laws about a couple's separation in that country, which benefits the husband while punishing the wife.

The other theme at the core of the story is a painting Roxanne has brought with her from San Diego. The possibility of it being a real Delacroix is now at the center of the divorce settlement. Where one can see it has nothing to do with the cheating husband, Suzanne, the mother-in-law deems otherwise because of the possible value the painting will fetch when it's sold.

Naomi Watts makes another great contribution in her appearance as Roxanne. Kate Hudson is not in the same league, although her good looks and natural charm makes one care more for her Isabel. The delicious Leslie Caron plays Madame de Persand with great panache. Just watching her remarking about the granulated sugar Charlotte offers her to sweeten her tea is one of the delights of the film. Tierry Lhermitte is seen as the callous Edgar. Glenn Close plays Olivia Pace, a writer,who might be Diane Johnson's alter ego in the story. Stephen Fry, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston, and the rest of the French and American cast do a good job.

This film has a feeling of being more French than some French movies. The cinematography of Pierre Lhomme is wonderful as he takes his camera all over the city showing us what a treat it is to be in Paris, even for a visit. The other thing that comes across is the involvement of the late Ismail Marchant to the production. Mr. Merchant got great locales in where to film and had a great eye for the style of the pictures he was producing. His absence, alas, is sadly missed from the latest James Ivory project "The White Countess".

In spite of not being up to some of his best movies, James Ivory still shows he has a keen eye for presenting the material on the screen.

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32 utilisateurs sur 52 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Merchant Ivory come up lame., 13 février 2005

Auteur : jbass99 de Etats-Unis

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.

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42 utilisateurs sur 72 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Huh?, 6 décembre 2004
Auteur : LOCKWOOT de INDIANAPOLIS INDIANA

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.

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20 utilisateurs sur 30 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Not THAT Bad!, 1 novembre 2004

Auteur : Signet de Baltimore

The performances are terrific, Kate Hudson proves that she is the actress that Goldie Hawn never was, and it is always good to see Leslie Caron looking her age and looking great. Now, the matter of the plot has been raised and the consensus so far is that it is a bag of clichés dumped into a blender and then poured out on film.

True. But, the book was no great shakes either and the screenplay simply has not risen above its origins.

I enjoyed Le Divorce for its cynicism and its predictability, frankly. It is nice every now and then to see a movie that elicits a sour chuckle rather than a guffaw or a shriek, and this is one of them.

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18 utilisateurs sur 29 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
culture conflict film - not bad at all, 4 septembre 2004

Auteur : dromasca de Herzlya, Israël

James Ivory is not exactly a politically orientated film maker, but it took some courage, and it was a politic message releasing a film about Americans living in Paris, and the culture clash between American and French in 2003. Although his film is more about family relations and cultural perception, it says a lot about humans being more important in the relations between two nations than their leaders politics.

Not that the relations in the film are that soft. I know quite well both American and French mentalities, and I appreciate the ironic mirror this film puts in the faces of the two peoples. There is certainly a certain dose of stereotype in the approach, but still the characters are well built, they act with logic most of the time, and some good acting from a bi-lingual team

helps a lot. Paris is still the best location to pick for a film ever. The plot is a little bit too long, and the end suffers from hollywooditis, but overall it is a satisfying cinema experience. I do not like the romantic genre too much, but it was better than I expected. 7 out of 10 on my personal scale.

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25 utilisateurs sur 43 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
It Could Have Been Good, 13 février 2004

Auteur : Ralph Michael Stein (riglltesobxs@mailinator.com) de New York, N.Y.

"Le Divorce" fails. Despite the beauty of the locales and the talent of the lead actors, the director couldn't decide if this is a Parisian comedy or an adult tale of marital discord gone horrifically askew.

The interaction between the two female leads is good-half-sisters and true soulmates. But their romantic and marital complications come too fast with too little depth and the film is on a train wreck in the making.

And suave, affluent, cheating Frenchmen are a stale staple of these movies. Nothing new or interesting here.

Too bad.

4/10.

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6 utilisateurs sur 6 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Quirky mess, but far from "the worst movie ever made.", 10 juin 2007

Auteur : EThompsonUMD de Massachusetts

*** Ce commentaire peut contenir des spoilers ***

Le Divorce (2003) is not by any stretch a very good movie. But is it - as a stunning number of IMDb subscribers have dubbed it - "the worst movie ever made"? Very far from it I'd say, but then I've seen a ton of real clunkers in over five decades of obsessive movie viewing. While Le Divorce has more than its fair share of implausible and languorous moments, I nevertheless managed to stay reasonably awake and entertained throughout.

The heavily negative response the film received from American reviewers and on this film site has perhaps less to do with the film's merits (or lack thereof) than with the misleading way it was marketed and to the casting of Kate Hudson in its lead role. Though limited in acting range, Ms. Hudson is blessed with her mother Goldie's winning smile and a screen-persona tailor-made for light comedy. In Le Divorce she seems to have stumbled into an alternate universe, and no doubt her many fans felt the same way upon viewing the film.

However it might be classified (and I'm not sure how that might be), Le Divorce is clearly NOT a romantic comedy geared to the tastes of teens and twenty-somethings. It's probably better not to think of it as a romantic comedy at all - at least not in the usual American sense of a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets girl plot with a heavy admixture of screwball humor to keep the patrons amused. Quite to the contrary, Le Divorce includes scenes of attempted suicide, stalking, hostage taking, and murder. And these are not handled with humor - screwball, black, or any other form. They are staged with at times all too much seriousness.

Also, "the boy" in the romantic formula turns out to be a notorious 55 year old French sophisticate/philanderer named Edgar Cosset (Thierry Lhermitte) whose M.O. for the conduct of extra-marital affairs includes the gift of an expensive Hermes "Kelly bag" at the start of a relationship and a stylish scarf at its end. One of the running jokes in Le Divorce (admittedly not a belly-whopper) is that every woman in Paris seems to recognize Edgar's seduction methods and instruments except his latest flame, a visiting American ingénue, Isabel Walker (Hudson). Nor does the Edgar-Isabel plot have a happy ending in the manner of Gigi, a film referenced by Le Divorce through the casting of Leslie Caron in a well-done supporting role.

There is no reconciliation to be found in Le Divorce between American post-feminist romantic idealism and French double-standard patriarchy and sexual cynicism. These are two worlds that do not comprehend each other, and never the twain shall meet- well, hardly ever. The film's other romantic plot involving Isabel's older sister, the pregnant poet Roxanne (Naomi Watts) does provide us with a somewhat conventional romantic resolution, by uniting Roxanne not with her divorce-seeking, two-timing French husband (who ends up precipitously and conveniently dead) but with the sympathetic lawyer she hires to represent her in an increasingly ugly property battle with her in-laws. By the time this happens, however, "le divorce" has been relegated to the background, and "l'affaire" between Isabel and Edgar has moved to central prominence in the screenplay.

Naomi Watts is a great actress, but Le Divorce is clearly not her finest moment. Her role is by turns over-the-top dramatically (her poetry reading scene and subsequent suicide-attempt) and underwritten (she practically disappears in the last third of the film). The rest of Le Divorce's cast includes some very good actors like Glenn Close, Sam Waterston, Stockard Channing, Stephen Fry, Matthew Modine, and the aforementioned Leslie Caron. Other than Caron, the only one of these who is given much to do is Modine. And that turns out to be quite unfortunate since the mad betrayed-husband stalker/murderer he plays is a completely unmotivated and implausible character who bizarrely hijacks the film's final scenes for no apparent reason other than to make dramatic visual use of Le Tour Eiffel - after all, this is Paris, n'est pas?

If Le Divorce had been a low-budget ex-Sundance project with a cast of no-names, I think it might have garnered a more appreciative following. It is nothing if not quirky, and it does offer some piquant cross-cultural humor and jabs at the privileged world of the arts(y). The plot also keeps us guessing where it will turn next, but one does have to wonder whether the director wasn't equally in the dark about that.

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33 utilisateurs sur 61 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
What's the name of the movie again??, 1 avril 2004

Auteur : lipardom de New York

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.

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7 utilisateurs sur 11 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
generalities, truth, and a few near-misses, 11 août 2006

Auteur : rick-848 de France

After viewing the unfortunate "Golden Bowl" (also by James Ivory) the day before, an exposure to "Le Divorce" was certainly a refreshing sip of champagne. This may be the first James Ivory movie I've seen where I forgot to look at the sets (unlike Ivory's other French venture, "Jefferson in Paris"). This is mostly due to the depth of certain actors and the fact that this time Ivory decides to close in on them rather than frame them. When the book came out, as an American living in Paris for 30 years, I avoided reading another set of American observations on everything French that foreign residents here hate, and I can't say that the movie avoids the pitfalls of throwing around generalities. Yet this is kept to an astonishing minimum, perhaps because few of the main characters really consider themselves typical representatives of their native country. Instead of a plethora of reflections coming out of their mouths, "the French are like this, the Americans are like that," the viewer can actually draw his own conclusions about which country has the "nicest" people and the place of formality when it comes to private matters. After all, would the story have been that much different if it had dealt with class differences in New York City? The characters who do tend to generalize are perhaps the least involved in what is going on. They form the real "décor" of the film, rather than the wallpaper and polished furniture, although these elements certainly haven't been omitted.

I find it strange that the two most interesting actors are supposed to belong to the subplot, Kate Hudson and Thierry L'Hermitte. The latter is currently being wasted in his late middle age in French films, and, like Louis Jourdan in "Gigi," manages to bring a little subtle something extra to the most stereotyped part in the film. I'd like to see him extend what he has done here, if any producer or director can be bothered.

The film had such a short run in France that I missed seeing it in a movie theater, and it was as dismissed by most French critics on its release as some of the American characters by their French counterparts in the film itself. It would be a shame to overlook this light but not lightweight effort, for it has a surprisingly natural charm and raises interesting questions about how much the culture that forms our conditioning influences our very humanity.

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8 utilisateurs sur 13 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
A gorgeous piece of film-making, 25 juin 2006

Auteur : janhus de Prague, République Tchèque

I found it surprising that this film was not directed by a French director - it has a certain stylistic feel that is prevalent throughout the French film industry but non-French directors rarely capture. I found the illustrations of the subtle differences between French and American perspectives to be very well handled. For anyone who has lived outside their own country and been thrown into another culture, a great many of the observations and small "inside" jokes shine through. There is an obvious juxtaposition of the two families (one very "typical" American, the other more "old money" French) with the people in the middle (Naomi Watts' and Glenn Close's characters, who are from one "side" but live amongst the others) which is refreshingly handled. Some criticisms here point to a lack of action but this film is very much about style and impressions and less about racking up plot points. The only character that I felt lacked depth was that of Matthew Modine, who seems a bit one-dimensional - despite the huge role in the plot for which he is responsible.

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