(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
They are no big secret that the relationship between the United States and France has been somewhat strained over the past year, and this relationship is not particularly painful when we Divorce follows two American sisters and their more or less fortunate romances in the capital of love, Paris.
Roxy (Naomi Watts) is a poet and has found herself at ease as a bohemian Parisian woman with a husband and children. When sister Isabel (Kate Hudson) comes to visit from Santa Barbara, she barely manages to register that Roxy's husband leaves his heavily pregnant wife in favor of another woman. However, Roxy is not willing to give the man the divorce he wants, and eventually his very bourgeois family is also drawn into the drama. To further complicate matters, Isabel steps into the role of mistress for her unfaithful brother-in-law's middle-aged uncle, and on top of that, a psychotic and jealous American husband wanders the streets of Paris wanting his wife – Roxy's unfaithful husband's new boyfriend ( !) – back.
Divorce is a light comic drama that primarily explores the fundamental differences between American and French etiquette. The film moves through a swamp of more or less serious cultural clashes, and although director James Ivory manages to relate quite ironically to the California he hails from, it is inevitable that it is first and foremost the French way of life and the Parisian temper that gets on the scrotum in this movie. The battle is between down-to-earth Americans with bones in their noses and the superficial snobby and immoral French bourgeoisie. This is where the stereotypes – which Ivory clearly tries to avoid – still stand out clearly. Even if the characters on the outside seem nuanced, they are still overtaken by slightly too simple and easily digestible generalizations of cultural differences. Precisely for this reason, there is a lack of a concrete attitude to the cultural differences that are to be problematised. Ivory is simply not tough enough. His silk gloves become too light in a context and a political climate that requires a pair of earplugs, or at least an unexpected thought.
James Ivory, however, is a director who by no means becomes a flag-wielding patriot or in excess of American, as one might fear with this kind of theme of national moods. Ivory is almost too English for that. He has a formed nose for sociological nuances as he has also shown it in films like A room with a view, Remains of the day og Howards End. THE Divorce we see a director strolling through a modern one comedy or manners which shows a comical surplus in small episodes and supporting roles which in turn emphasize and highlight the national characteristics it harassed.
James Ivory and Indian manufacturer Ismail Merchant have over the years made Merchant / Ivory a cinematic quality stamp, and if not Divorce is a movie that is going to reap the very big prices, then there is still no doubt that this stamp is still valid.
