As a Midwest American, I admittedly have never understood the whole French thing. It’s always been my suspicion a large portion of French culture makes no sense to Americans. I also suspect those very same Americans who don’t like or understand French culture and art end up praising it for fear of looking like they just don’t get it. My fear is that the same will happen with “Le Divorce,” a very boring film that seems perfect for Americans to unjustly hype.
This film is impossible to put into one specific genre because the numerous storylines are so varied. As a result, a constant tone is never established, and it is difficult to tell what is happening.
In the beginning, young American Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) arrives in France to visit her pregnant sister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts), a poet living in Paris with her French painter husband Antoine. Apparently, everyone in France is a painter, poet or some other form of sophisticated socialite. I’m not exactly sure how the trash gets picked up or the mail delivered in France. Meanwhile, Antoine packs up and leaves Roxeanne. One would think this would make Roxeanne a sympathetic character, but it just doesn’t because Watts plays the role as such a pathetically weak woman, wanting only to get back with her slimy husband, no matter how poorly he treats her.
After her arrival, Isabel takes up a relationship with Antoine’s much older uncle Edgar. He’s cultured and classy, and she falls for him despite every indication that she should not. The result is a series of drawn out after-sex conversations that lead nowhere and expose Edgar as a self-absorbed jerk. Isabel, however, doesn’t end up looking very good either, coming off as a woman willing to cheapen herself for Edgar and accept lavish gifts in return. The sisters’ lack of any self respect is off-putting. The most engaging character in the film is Tellman, a mysteriously intriguing, yet brief character played by Matthew Modine. Tellman begins to pop up after his wife begins an affair with Antoine. What he wants is never really clear. He’s desperate and ready to snap at any point with a true sense of vulnerability and sadness that come through in every short scene he appears in. His body language and speech are erratic and confused, and reflect a depth that no one else bothers to display. His spastic behavior is slightly out of place in the film but is a welcomed change to the snail’s pace the rest of the plot follows.
That was enough for four movies right there, but even more unnecessary elements are tossed in. Glenn Close wastes time as another American artist in Paris whose presence in the film adds about as much support as an armchair made of mashed potatoes. And one can’t help but notice the entire time that she’s acting.
Despite all of this, the film could have been saved with an interesting examination of the cross cultural relationships within the film. Instead the film paints cultural generalizations in wide strokes rather than taking time to develop realistic comparisons. During a dinner scene between Antoine and Roxeanne’s families, the subject of deer hunting comes up. Roxeanne’s father remarks, “You shoot them, I guess?”, to which Edgar returns “We hunt them with dogs. It’s beautiful”. Edgar sort of scoffs at the American’s barbaric hunting practices. Meanwhile, out in the audience, I sarcastically think to myself “Man, if we could only kill deer as beautifully as them.” Call me the silly American if you will, but I just don’t get it.
