Le Divorce

The starchy tone that Merchant Ivory - with regular writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - dress up their period literary adaptations is ill-suited to this sprightly look at a modern culture clash. Lurching between the gruelling family drama of expat poet Roxie (Watts) and her philandering French husband, and the supposedly breezy romantic misadventures of her visiting younger sister Isobel (Hudson), Ivory tinkles away, apparently blissfully unaware that his wildly divergent strands stubbornly refuse to harmonise.

Worse still, the sisters are surrounded by a woeful gallery of stereotypes, of both Americans (good-natured innocents abroad) and the French (arrogant snobs). Isobel's lovers - a stubbly, Gitanes-smoking bohemian and a slick middle-aged politician - couldn't be more cliched if they'd roped in Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel to co-star. And worryingly, Hudson apes her mother Goldie Hawn's ditziness.

Pockets of relief are to be found in the watchable supporting cast, but these do not compensate for distracting subplots, a late lurch into melodrama and a baffling attempt to excuse it all with some magic realism.