August 7-13, 2003

movies

French Twists

The not-so-quiet american: Kate Hudson as Le Divorce’s fluttery Isabel.

Coincidence entwines characters in Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala’s Le Divorce.

by Cindy Fuchs

Like previous Merchant-Ivory productions, Le Divorce concerns culture clashes, disruptive expatriates and squabbles over stuff. Based on Diane Johnson’s novel, James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s episodic screenplay is less interested in character arcs than discrete moments, little tableaux displaying predictable differences between generations, genders and national ideologies.

The film opens as Isabel (Kate Hudson) arrives in Paris from Santa Barbara. (According to novelist Johnson, her name alludes to Henry James' Isabel Archer, exemplary American in Paris.) Isabel is all fluttery expectations, come to visit her sister, Roxy (Naomi Watts), a poet married to Charles-Henri (Melvil Poupaud) and expecting their second child. Emerging from her cab, Isabel runs smack into Charles-Henri, just that minute leaving his wife for another woman (Rona Hartner's sultry Magda), though he's incapable of explanation, saying only, "I'm in a hurry, I've got to go."

Loosely structured by similar coincidences, the film has characters stepping in and out of each other's lives, passing judgments and reaffirming stereotypes. So, while Charles-Henri's bad behavior motivates Isabel and Roxy's discussion of his indulgence by his mother, Suzanne (Leslie Caron), his famille notes his initial misstep in marrying "the American." Similarly, when Isabel, "the other American," becomes the mistress of Suzanne's brother, Edgar (Thierry Lhermitte), cross-cultural misunderstandings proliferate. Glib and "instructive," he gives her a red crocodile Hermès handbag, the same present he bestowed on another lover years ago, another expatriate writer, Olivia (Glenn Close), who happens to employ Isabel at just this juncture. And so on.

Though the blond Americans display a certain crass new-worldliness, the impending divorce has everyone scrambling for stuff: heirlooms, furniture and, in particular, a painting that may or may not be a Georges de la Tour. (Even if it's been in Roxy's family for generations, it is, Suzanne notes, "French.") Plots to secure the painting begin to hatch, aided by reps from The Getty Museum (Bebe Neuwirth), Christie's (Stephen Fry) and the Louvre (Daniel Mesguich), as well as Roxy and Isabel's comically calculating brother, Roger (Thomas Lennon) and vapid parents (Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston).

Conflicts escalate and recede, with stakes ranging from personal pride and responsibility to presumed birthrights and privileges. The wrench tossed into this mix is the emotionally deranged and increasingly crude American, Tellman (Matthew Modine), married to Magda and wholly incapable of "controlling" his hostility. While the affluent families conspire to win property (whether out of vengeance or egotism), for Tellman, the wife is an irreplaceable possession, whom he compares repeatedly to a beloved puppy. His vigorous assertion of ownership appears to counter the others' more genteel behaviors. But in the end, everyone makes the same assumption, varying only by degrees: They all "deserve" what they want, even if they're not sure what that is.

Le Divorce

Directed by James Ivory

A Fox Searchlight release

Opens Friday at Ritz Five