Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston
Director: James Ivory
This is a film that is truly difficult to categorize. It’s not a drama, a suspense thriller or a romantic comedy although it does contain some elements of dramatic tension, a form of romance and a couple of fairly humorous situations.
It’s about Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) who goes to Paris to live with her sister who’s a poet married to a French artist. But when she arrives she walks in on the husband walking out on her sister who is both pregnant and has a young daughter to support. The film is also about Isabel experiencing middle class French cultural society and having affairs with both a young Frenchman of her own age and a distinguished older Frenchman who has virtually made a career out of seducing young women.
LE DIVORCE is an American movie that is trying to be one of those quirky French social comedies where everyone is having affairs with everyone else and it succeeds in its storyline although it omits that special touch of French humour that can be so amusing to audiences of both sexes. Instead it’s really like one of those romantic novels that some women seem to like so much except it doesn’t have many sexy situations in it.
As a male I have to say that I found myself on the edge of boredom more than once and wondering what else I could have been watching to review, but the largely female press audience did seem to find it all terribly amusing and enjoyable.
Therefore I hereby label this movie a total ‘chick-flick’ and warn guys to stay well away and look for a film with plenty of exciting action, sexy girls dressed in provocative clothing and a damn good reason to suspend your disbelief and fantasize about what could be. Failing that may be a crude comedy with lots of laughs (and girls) or of you want to be intellectual – a real French film with subtitles and proper French humour.
Either way if you’re a guy stay away from LE DIVORCE and if you’re a girl who likes ridiculous romantic novels about people having affairs, then see it with another girl and my
rating is only for you.
