"Le Divorce," which is about contrary French and American standards for marriage, adultery, divorce and affairs, finds that the two nations are simply incompatible. While there are too many characters in too much story for the movie to really involve us, it's amusing as a series of sketches about how the French think they are a funny race (or the Americans, take your choice). I am reminded of the British writer Peter Nobel, who said everything he knew about France could be summed up in this story: "An English guy walks into a cafe in Cannes and asks if they have a men's room. The waiter replies: 'Monsieur! I have only two hands!'" The movie stars Naomi Watts as Roxeanne, a pregnant American whose faithless French husband, Charles-Henri de Persand (Melvil Poupaud), has walked out on her because of his obsession with a married Russian woman named Magda. Roxeanne's sister, Isabel (Kate Hudson), flies to Paris to support her sister, and soon promotes an affair for herself with Edgar (Thierry Lhermitte), the brother of Roxeanne's mother-in-law. Meanwhile, Magda's American husband (Matthew Modine) becomes a stalker, threatening Roxeanne. Doesn't he understand that it was her husband who stole away his wife? Roxeanne's husband begs for a divorce. "She must understand," her husband patiently explains to Isabel, "that I have met the love of my life." He sees himself as the wronged party. Meanwhile, Edgar moves swiftly on his first lunch date with Isabel, explaining that the only question before them is whether she will become his mistress. What ... ah ... what exactly would that involve, Isabel asks, in a moment that reminds us Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn's daughter and has that same eyelid-batting trick of seeming naive and insinuating at the same time. Edgar explains that they would amuse each other: "I find you entertaining, and I hope you find me entertaining." Isabel says she wouldn't want their families to know. "Frankly," he says, "it would never occur to me to tell them." The movie is based on a best-selling novel by Diane Johnson, and has been directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, working with their usual screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The Merchant-Ivory firm are masters of movies about manners, and have fun with the rules by which Edgar conducts his affairs. A new conquest is immediately given a Kelly bag; that's a $6,000-and-up purse from Hermes, of the sort Grace Kelly always carried. Glenn Close, who plays an expatriate American writer in Paris, was a lover of Edgar's years ago, we learn, and observes that his affairs always begin with the bag, and end with the gift of a scarf.
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