ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

tomgoblin-44620 NO ONE in this film over the age of 5 fails to horrify. In a variety of ways of course. I kept thinking of words like "Vile" or "Stupid". As a conventional film entertainment, I give it a 1. As an incisive critique, it deserves an 8.But, of course.My takeaway was that this was a brilliant dissection of the French and American upper classes as they interacted. Both were vile and a disgrace to the best aspirations of most civilizations of the past 500 years.If you wrote down on a set of tickets every human weakness you could think of and put them all in a little jar, then pulled them out one by one, you could find an example of each (very well acted) in this movie.I liken it to a very well done Army training film on venereal disease. Professionally done but, disgusting. If this was the intent of the writer/director then they deserve an 10! "A sickly sourness filled the room. The bitter harvest of a dying bloom"* Finally, seeing it so many years later while France is collapsing in a self-induced cultural suicide...it has a sort of historical sting. You can see why French "Elites" have wrecked their country. Self-involvement, decadence and cynical detachment have reached full bloom.It couldn't happen to a more deserving people. I just hope America doesn't go completely over the cultural/moral brink that the French are living out as I write this.But, of course...*Peter Gabriel

moonspinner55 Director James Ivory also co-adapted this film-version of Diane Johnson's novel about a pregnant American writer in Paris getting a visit from her vivacious half-sister on the same afternoon her husband walks out on her and their young daughter; while the estranged couple squabbles over legal matters, the sister gets a job working with another female writer and seduces a French politician, whom she calls "Uncle Edgar". Botched treatise on American marriage versus French marriage (as well as politics, money, art, and cuisine) is light at first but soon becomes a dirge. In the leads, Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts are certainly likable, but the bland script (directed in a woefully low-keyed manner) never allows their personal chemistry to shine through; Watts, in particular, struggles with her sniping, unhappy character. Curiously misjudged effort from the team of Ivory-Merchant. *1/2 from ****

Tom White I keep trying to figure out why this movie is rated so low. I thought it was very good, and that was before I started reading the book -- well more than halfway through, I think it's a faithful adaptation that delivers the storyline and the theme of the novel very well. I tend now to read the novel a movie is based on after I've seen the film, since my experience has taught me that doing the reverse always leads to disappointment in the movie. This was not an error with this title. I think all the casting, all the acting, and especially the direction, were well done.It seems to me that somehow viewers were expecting too much from the movie. My philosophy is that expectations are arranged disappointments, and I try not to expect anything going in. I do admit that I had some doubts when it seemed that Merchant-Ivory were doing what looked like a light comedy, but there is much more to the book and film than that, first of all, and secondly, why should accomplished filmmakers not move around the genres? Look at Kubrick and The Archers, just to name two, who did so and did it successfully. I wonder how many people went in expecting "Howards End" and thus were disappointed, not in the film but by their own expectations. It's not fair to the filmmakers. Expecting "Le Divorce" to be on par with "Howards End" was like expecting "Howards End" to have the same effect as "Shakespeare Wallah" -- two completely different experiences. It's entirely possible, in fact, that Merchant-Ivory might not have done as good a job on "Le Divorce" had they not made "Howards End" first. It's a matter of process. My point being, that each film must be judged on its own merits.I've read a couple of comments and message board posts that complain about how the movie makes French people look -- arrogant, garrulous, etc. I think that's overstating a generalization. The movie makes THESE PARTICULAR French people look arrogant and garrulous, because they are -- and devious and self-centered and boorish. But to leap to the conclusion that the movie is making a statement about all French people is patently ridiculous. "The views expressed by the characters in this movie are entirely their own".On the other hand, one has to remember that Diane Johnson, who wrote the book and a number of books about the culture since, spends half her time in France. She does't take her subjects lightly; she's an intelligent, thoughtful, and though-provoking writer, and I would urge the people who find the movie too subjective to go to its source and read the book. They will find that the book is written from the point of view of one person, and is about the relations between two families -- not two complete cultures. Just because people say something about a culture does't make it true. Perception itself is subjective. In the book (I can't recall if this occurs in the film, I'll have to see it again) Uncle Edgar, perhaps the most sensible character, himself speaks those words that send a shiver of annoyance up my spine: "You Americans. You think..." As if we all think the same thing (and we all know THAT isn't true!). It shows that subjectivity is a common human trait, that we look at the world with our own particular set of blinders, filter our thought through our cultural stance, although I think that perhaps French thought is more synthesized and common than American thought which is, by nature of the population, more diverse.In the end I think that the book and the film are VERY objective, and let us look at our own judgmental selves and see how the judgmental and subjective nature of our thought and attitude can be damaging and inhibiting. I think that's the theme, and it comes across very well.

izabelag This is the worst movie i've ever seen in my life. Not only does the plot make no sense at all, Kate Hudson plays a dumb promiscuous woman who, instead of helping her recently divorced pregnant sister, spends all her time having an affair with an old pathetic man. It has no point. It tries to demonstrate how french people are despicable and arrogant, at the same time shows how Americans refuse to live in a culture which is different from theirs. It is described as a romantic comedy, but the whole movie is a complete tragedy. The beautiful Naomi Watts plays a women who is totally submissive and was no point to live. It had such a bad review in Brazil that it didn't even make it to the movies. It is probably one of the worst movies in these two ladies careers.