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Divorce, Le
EMAILPRINTFox Searchlight Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 14 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
James Ivory
Diane Johnson (novel)
Directed by: James Ivory
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 8, 2003
DVD: January 27, 2004
Running Time: 115 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / France
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic elements and sexual content
Starring Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston, Leslie Caron, Bebe Neuwirth, and Matthew Modine
In this modern-day comedy of manners, American sisters Isabel (Hudson) and Roxy (Watts) come face to face with the complicated social mores of French society. Cultures clash and scandals ensue as the sisters learn what it really takes to be an American in Paris. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Room with a View A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries Howards End Jefferson in Paris Maurice Mr. and Mrs. Bridge Surviving Picasso The Bostonians The Golden Bowl The Remains of the Day The White Countess
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Washington Post Desson Thomson
A relaxed delight, a series of delicately tongue-in-cheek musings about the clash between American and French cultures.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
In this episodic film with a soupcon of "Sex and the City" (just as the Merchant Ivory Slaves of New York presaged the HBO hit), cross-cultural misunderstanding, not character, is the point.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
The actors and acting are so attractive--as is, per usual in a Merchant Ivory production, the scenery--that the movies less deft handling of the scenarios various themes, not to mention some stumbling in the final quarter, when the storys tone grows a little darker, doesnt stand out as much as it might have.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
This present-day Paris of Le Divorce is smartly shot and costumed, and the whole affair is breezy and uncharacteristically insouciant, given the reserved nature of the folks responsible for it.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Acted with relish by a note-perfect cast -- a romantic comedy of true sophistication. There's a sting in every laugh.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
While there are too many characters in too much story for the movie to really involve us, it's amusing as a series of sketches about how the French think they are a funny race (or the Americans, take your choice).
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
No masterpiece, but that shouldn't dissuade moviegoers from giving it a whirl as a flavorful alternative to the summer's more gimmicky fare.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Captures the effervescence and playfulness of Johnson's novel, even as it attempts to shoehorn a tangle of characters and situations.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Utterly charming and not without those subtle insights into character and culture that mark their (Merchant Ivory) best films.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
As in other Ivory-Jhabvala adaptations, ritzy consumerism is very much on display, but what makes this better than most is Johnson's amused admiration for nearly all her characters, regardless of nationality.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
One minor element in Le Divorce, the sale of a disputed and possibly valuable painting that once belonged to Watts' family, welcomes scene-stealing bits by Bebe Neuwirth and Stephen Fry as appraisers with clashing motives.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
An almost too-sophisticated comedy, pitting the New World mentality and brash pugnaciousness of America against the staid arrogance of custom that defines the French bourgeoisie.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
A tasty bonbon, initially appealing but not terribly satisfying.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Characters are left half-developed or undeveloped so that as much plot as possible can be crammed into two hours. The result, while not wholly unsatisfying, will disappoint those used to the cinematic richness we have come to expect from this collaboration.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Though not as witty or accomplished as you'd expect from its pedigree, "Le Divorce" provides welcome relief from the lame-brained trash Hollywood has foisted on the public this summer.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
For a movie that boasts a murder, a would-be suicide and the usual generous helping of screwing around à la français, Le Divorce is remarkably calm and contained even as it builds to its climax.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Feels like a period film in clumsy modern-day dressup.
Read Full Review >Village Voice David Ng
Entranced by the natives, Le Divorce reduces the knowing ditziness of Johnson's novel to vapid, exchange-student wonderment.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Somehow lacks lightness and weight. This is a movie that tries to work a bloody suicide attempt and a murder into a comedy of manners, with almost everything registering in the same narrow spectrum of inconsequence.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Whatever the reason, his riff on Le Divorce follows the original only in broad strokes, hewing to a similar plot with many of the same characters but without the wit, the barbs and the politics.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
This supposed comedy of manners about Americans in Paris feels artificial at every turn, its characters so devoid of backstory and nuance their behavior often makes little sense.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Is this just silly filmmaking, or have Ivory and Jhabvala succumbed to the Francophobia that gave us "freedom fries" in the congressional cafeteria?
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Team M-I knows its way around James and ignores the lazy stereotype of Americans as gauche rubes bumbling around Paris like barbarians at the ballet in favor of sly digs at French and American mores alike.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Scattered and silly. If it evokes any strong feelings from you, it will probably be hunger -- the food all looks so good.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
A thin and unsatisfying concoction that somehow manages to make one of the richest and most durable sources of culture-clash comedy into an occasion for dullness.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The French may be guilty of some bad behavior, but that's no reason to punish them with the shapeless, deceptively crass Le Divorce, a Merchant-Ivory production in which all things Gallic are reduced to quirks of snobbery, misogyny and haute selfishness.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
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.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
I'm disappointed to report that Hudson and Watts have no chemistry as sisters, perhaps because Watts never seems like the expatriate artiste she's supposed to be playing.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
It may be that Merchant Ivory need the armature of the past in order to create a sense of the present. Le Divorce is mustier than any of their movies set back in time.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Kate Hudson gives the best performance in the movie, though she seems always on the verge of being funnier and dirtier than she's allowed to be. Elsewhere the cast is accumulated for their cachet more than for any role they're given to play. Some of the casting makes no sense.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
There are flashes of wit and flair here, including two stylish sequences detailing the French obsession with food and scarves, but they are but brief respites from the films near-pathological drear.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
At its best (which isn't much), Le Divorce blusters along with the tolerable tedium of had-to-be-there home movies; at its worst (which is about 90 percent), it illustrates why the French went and invented the word merde.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Should have been a smart bit of cinematic froth but instead sinks like an overworked souffle.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The truth is that almost nobody, and certainly no nation, emerges well from this sour endeavor. [18 & 25 August 2003, p. 150]
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The movie bobbles along on a weird, soft-edged sarcasm.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A generally mirthless comedy of manners.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.7 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
joe gave it a1:
Horrifying little movie by someone who is probably the sort of person who still calls french fries "freedom fries." For all the eye candy on the screen, everyone manages to come off extremely ugly. Avoid.
Rob C gave it a0:
So loaded with feminist propaganda that every development left me in no suspense as to its purpose and outcome. Reminiscent of old Soviet movies. Excruciating.
Mindi gave it a7:
The movie was definately a chick flick that would quickly become a movie you and the girls could enjoy together.
Paul D. gave it a5:
Nice look at Parisian style and food, but that's about it, other than a good performance by Glen Close.
brian p. gave it a1:
This movie sucks! boring and a complete waste of my time. the french actors were annoying and lame. and the americans were horrible as well. the movie's pace was so slow that i almost fell asleep and the plot went nowhere. do yourself a favor and pass on this one.
Adriana A. gave it a 1:
This movie should have been called "what length hair will Kate Hudson wear?" Her hair went from cropped short to very long all throughout the movie! It was very distracting! Also the movie is very boring and things just seem to happen out of nowhere... no character development ... movie not funny at all. So many plots were happening and the sad thing is you never really got to care about any of the characters. This really is the worst movie I have seen in a while.
Paw A. gave it a 2:
I can only assume Merchant Ivory thought of this as a modern day comedy of manners. While it might have been pithy or poignant given a known set of ethics or manners in play, there are no moral or societal codes evident in this disjointed failure of a movie. My expectations were low, thinking this would be a bit of froth decorated by Watts and Hudson, but I did expect some character devolpment of the barest sort. Nope, sorry. There is no particular reason for almost any of the behaviour, nor do we really care about any of the cast. The only emotion I could muster was annoyance. While Naomi Watts looked ravashing in one or two scenes she disappeared for most of the second half, leaving the screen to a puffy Hudson in a bad wig. The climactic scene on the (i'm not kidding) Eiffel Tower (there's an original idea) was totally no climax at all and just underlined that the movie made no sense. As if to completely give up we are given a flying purse to try to tie nothing to more nothing. The fact that 1/3 of the movie requires reading English subtitles for the French spoken, just adds more tedium. Go rent virtually anything instead of this.
