Le Divorce

LE DIVORCE, based on the novel by Diane Johnson, is a contemporary Merchant/Ivory production that explores the fundamental differences between Americans and the French, especially in matters of the heart and manners. Isabel (Kate Hudson) is a brash, outspoken Californian who travels to Paris to help her pregnant expatriot sister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts). Once there she finds that Roxeanne's cheating husband (Melvil Poupaud) has abandoned her for his sexy mistress. Determined to help Roxeanne, Isabel settles in and quickly succumbs to the charms of Paris, including its men. She embarks on her own affair with Edgar (Thierry Lhermitte), the married brother of Suzanne de Persand (Leslie Caron), Roxeanne's bourgeois mother-in-law, and falls into the stereotypical life of a French mistress, receiving expensive Hermes gifts, and undergoing a chic cultural makeover. However, Suzanne quickly learns of the affair and is enraged, claiming that Americans don't know how to have proper, temporary affairs. Upon the arrival of Isabel and Roxeanne's typically American parents (Stockard Channing and Sam Waterson), the cultural divide becomes deeper as the two families battle it out over love, marriage, infidelity, fortune and ultimately: divorce.