Taglines: Everything sounds sexier in French.
The differences in legalities and cultural mores of French and Americans regarding sex, love, marriage, religion and family bonds are presented through the interactions of two families related by marriage. American Isabel Walker heads to Paris to visit her half-sister, poet Roxeanne de Persand, who is early in the pregnancy of her second child. Isabel arrives to find that Roxy’s French husband, Charles-Henri de Persand, has just left Roxy, the sisters both eventually further learning that it is because he has fallen in love with another woman, who is herself married.
Roxy and Charles-Henri deal with their break-up, which Roxy does not want but must face the legal consequences of, including determining the ownership of what may be a valuable French painting that has been casually in the Walker family for years, but which Roxy has had in her possession since she got married. Meanwhile, Isabel begins to explore all that France has to offer, which includes concurrently embarking on sexual issues.
Le Divorce is a Merchant Ivory Productions film directed by James Ivory from a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Ivory, based on Diane Johnson’s best-selling novel.
Isabel (Kate Hudson) Walker travels to Paris to visit her sister, poet Roxy (Naomi Watts), who lives with her husband, Frenchman Charles-Henri, and her young daughter, Gennie. Roxy is pregnant, but her husband has just walked out on her without explanation. Isabel discovers that he has a married Russian lover, Magda Tellman, whom he intends to marry after securing a divorce from Roxy. Roxy refuses to divorce him.
Paris-based American author Olivia Pace (Glenn Close), a friend of Roxy’s, offers Isabel a job. The sisters visit the Charles-Henri’s family’s country home for Sunday brunch, where Isabel meets Charles-Henri’s mother (Leslie Caron), and her handsome middle-aged brother-in-law, Edgar.
Isabel also meets Yves, Olivia’s protégé, and they begin an affair. At the same time, she is attracted to the older, wealthy and married Edgar. The two begin an affair, although Isabel continues to string Yves along.
Charles-Henri maintains a blasé attitude about his infidelity and insists on a divorce. He also hopes to benefit from the French community property laws in the divorce, especially with regard to a painting owned by his wife’s family. His mistress, Magda Tellman, is married to a man who begins to stalk and harass Roxy, thinking her responsible for his wife’s desertion. Charles-Henri’s cruelty and insensitivity take their toll on Roxy, and she attempts suicide in late pregnancy. She survives and is supported by Isabel and her lawyer.
Roxy and Isabel’s parents arrive from the US, which further complicates things when Edgar ‘s wife, Amelie, discovers the affair through Edgar’s sister and Roxy’s mother-in-law. She and Charles-Henri’s mother confront, not Isabel, but her mother.
Magda childishly teases her husband with her new relationship, and Charles-Henri is later found dead, murdered by Magda’s husband in a crime of passion. Tellman then follows the sisters on a family outing to the Eiffel Tower, where he corners them and pulls a gun, demanding an opportunity to explain to an absent Roxy why he killed her husband. After some persuasion, the distraught Tellman releases the gun to Isabel, who drops it into a Hermes bag, an expensive gift from Edgar, before throwing it off the Eiffel Tower.
Directed by: James Ivory
Starring: Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Marie-Christine Adam, Thierry Lhermitte, Melvil Poupaud, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston, Jean-Marc Barr, Bebe Neuwirth, Matthew Modine
Screenplay by: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, James Ivory
Production Design by: Frédéric Bénard
Cinematography by: Pierre Lhomme
Film Editing by: John David Allen
Costume Design by: Carol Ramsey
Set Decoration by: Sabine Delouvrier
Music by: Richard Robbins
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic elements and sexual content.
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: August 8, 2003
