Le Divorce

When the killer pair of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory come together on any project, one can be rest assured that the movie is going to be watchable. So the base scale at 5 on 10 is really bad for this super successful cinematic pair. Rest assured, Le Divorce lives upto the average Merchant Ivory fan’s expectations. It is not the arty kinds that take you back to the MI movies of the seventies where there are severely long pregnant pauses to create the impact desired. And don’t let the cast misguide you into thinking that they have succumbed to the temptation of making movies that are super commercially viable. It’s a good combination of the traditional Merchant Ivory values with some new blood spiked in. Le Divorce is a refreshing, stylish, classy Rom Com.
Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) walks into Paris to visit her pregnant sister Roxanne (Naomi Watts) who is a poet and married to Charles Henri de Persand (Melvil Poupaud) and has a 5 year old daughter. Roxanne is out grocery shopping and is unaware that her husband is planning to take off that very day with his mistress and new found love, Magda Tellman (Rona Hartner). Roxy walks back home only to find CH hurriedly leaving their home. He offers her no reason and runs off as quickly as he can only to bump into Isabel on his way out. Very non chalantly, he plants a kiss on Isabel’s cheek and before you know it he’s gone.

Isabel and Roxy try to soak in the shock of the moment in as best a manner as possible. Its not always that a pregnant woman walks into her house to see her husband walk out and leave a 5 year old girl to take care off. They try to piece their lives back together. The weekend was to be spent with CH’s parents which cannot be cancelled. So in atypical French style when asked where CH was, the answer is deflected to an official reason – to sell a painting for e.g. That in French custom is a good enough hint to the mother that something is amiss.

Roxy does not believe in divorce but when CH initiates proceedings, she is left with no choice. She is introduced by her author friend, Olivia Pace (Glen Close) to Maitre Bertram (Jean-Marc Brar) who is a lawyer to help her with some advise on the divorce and most importantly a painting of St. Ursula which is speculated to be the original by Georges de la Tour. Parallely Isabel is making the most of her time in France first with Yves (Romain Duris) who is introduced to her by Olivia and then with leading French Politician and CH’s uncle Edgar Cosset (Thierry Lhermitte). The main twist is yet to enter the story when one day on her return, Isabel finds at her door, Tellman (Matthew Modine). Tellman is the husband of Magda who CH has run off with. Tellman for some reason believes that the only way to get back and CH and Magda would be for him and Roxy to also have an affair.

James Ivory goes on through the movie as a satire on French customs and divorce laws that are super archaic. Woven in between all of these are the cultural differences between the Americans and the French – some of which seem very exciting (read better) for the Americans. Others which are fundamentally flawed – American or otherwise. The dialogues are smart and classy which is expected of a MI movie. The humour is very very very French. The locale…. Ah… Paris (pronounced with the silent s). Made mental note of making enough money to retire into somewhere in France eventually .

The cast is wonderfully picked up. Very balanced between the French and the American. The language is again balanced with quite a large portion of the movie in French. Trust MI to understand that the nuances of the movie could have been best delivered only in the local language. And with the ever trusted Ruth Pravar Jhabwala are their side they probably could not go wrong. Glen Close is oh so serene in her role as the retired author. Simplest of roles but such amazing screen presence!!!! Watts and Hudson give very good performances but somewhere they pale in comparison to the French cast which is outstanding.

Good concept, lovely humour. Very classy as mentioned earlier. 7 on 10 for this one