Poor climax in Paris

The indefatigable Merchant/ Ivory team has temporarily put its period frockery back in the wardrobe to get modern with this tale of Gallic/US culture clash. Essentially a tale of two blonde, American sisters in Paris whose romantic complications collide, the film offers a big, romantic view of the French capital that hasn't been seen in the cinema for decades.

Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) is a free-spirited, overprivileged American who goes to France in search of adventure and romance - and arrives at the apartment of pregnant sister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts) just in time to see her philandering husband, Charles-Henri (Melvil Poupaud), leaving for a married Russian minx.

Complications ensue involving the semi-psychotic American husband of said Russkie (Matthew Modine, in meltdown mode) and the legal ramifications of the impending divorce.

As the labyrinthine, overpopulated plot plays out, Isabel finds time to have sexual dalliances with a hirsute handyman, then a French politician, Edgar (Thierry Lhermitte), who invites her to become his mistress. This last is the most amusing and enlightening element of the movie as Hudson receives a formal education in adulterous behaviour from a master of sexual (in)discretion.

The key signifiers here are the gifts of a Hermes Kelly bag (named after Grace Kelly), indicating the start of the affair, and, later, of a Hermes scarf, signalling the end.

These are de-coded by Glenn Close's American expat writer (who gives a wicked impersonation of Meryl Streep), herself one of Edgar's former mistresses.

Olympian in her detachment from all this is Leslie Caron, Roxeanne's mother-in-law, who points out that Americans have absolutely no idea about how to conduct affairs in a civilised manner.

James Ivory's attention to detail is as canny as ever; he is particularly adept at using food and fine dining to express character modulation. The American family lunching in a French restaurant is particularly hilarious, an old gag freshened up with sharp dialogue and witty observation. And, of course, it all looks exquisite.

But the tone veers capriciously from sophisticated comedy to broad farce and melodrama, with too many digressions for it to be more than fitfully amusing. And the sub-plot, with Modine's deranged gun-toting husband, should have been jettisoned entirely, if only to have avoided the frankly ludicrous climax on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Le Divorce
Cert: cert12A