Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Le Divorce (2003)

Director: James Ivory

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

This contemporary comedy of manners postulates a pretty Paris playground for literate US expats - the sort of place where the man on the veg stall hands over asparagus with an allusion to La Princesse de Clèves. Roxy (poet, pregnant) is getting divorced from her upper echelon French husband Charles, who has been having an affair with a Ukrainian sculptor or some such. So half-sister Isabel is in town to provide moral support. Isabel's soon at a bit of two timing of her own, sweetly juggling a hedge-haired bohemian and a well-connected relative of Charles, who's twice her age. There's a subplot involving the authentication of an old oil painting, and much ado about Gallic social codes. Le Divorce is Merchant Ivory, hence the high culture occupations and the high calibre international cast. The above, not including the grocer and the sculptor, are embodied by Watts, Poupaud, Hudson, Duris and Lhermitte. Not to mention Channing, Modine, Caron, and on and on. Diane Johnson's novel accounts for a lot of the literary load - butmercifully the film is nothing like as self-satisfied as the book. Abraham Lincoln's truism - about people who like this sort of thing finding this the sort of thing they like - pretty much sums this movie up. But what's to like, or dislike? It trots along cleanly and briskly, though its human interest is just about nil; it's set in Paris, which is never a bad place to locate a story; and its brittle light-heartedness is easier on the nerves, than, say, the average Oliver Stone.

Author: SCr 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: James Ivory

Producer: Ismail Merchant, Michael Schiffer

Cast: Jean-Marc Barr, Leslie Caron, Stockard Channing, Glenn Close, Romain Duris, Stephen Fry, Kate Hudson, Samuel Labarthe, Thomas Lennon, Thierry Lhermitte, Daniel Mesguich, Matthew Modine, Bebe Neuwirth, Melvil Poupaud, Nathalie Richard, Catherine Samie, Sam Waterston, Naomi Watts, Humbert Balsam, Hélène Sugère full cast

Duration: 117 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.