by Peter Morris in Los Angeles 26 August 2003

When you look at the people behind this you’d expect to be reading a rave review - guess what? You won’t be reading it here!

Merchant/Ivory have made some great films over the years ("Howards End", "A Room with a View", "Remains of the Day" ) which have been  critically acclaimed and award winning and rightly so but someone somewhere dropped the ball with this one.

Despite a very attractive cast including French screen legend LESLIE CARON ("An American in Paris", "Chocolat" et al) and current Hollywood Hotties, NAOMI WATTS ("Mulholland Drive","The Ring" and the forthcoming "Ned Kelly" ) and KATE HUDSON ("Almost Famous", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "Alex and Emma") plus a host of other names like STOCKARD CHANNING, MATTHEW MODINE, GLENN CLOSE, BEBE NEUWIRTH, SAM WATERSTON - this film never really got me excited at all and is basically a farce.

The plot involves Californian Isabelle (HUDSON) going to visit her sister Roxanne (WATTS) in Paris where she’s married to Antoine, a French artist (French actor SAMUEL LABARTHE), has one daughter with him and another child on the way. Isabelle arrives just as the husband is leaving his pregnant wife to move in with his Russian lover who has just dumped her American lawyer husband (MODINE) to be with Antoine.

His family are French aristocracy and anxious that he does not lose any family heirlooms in a divorce but they would like a share in the value of a painting she brought from California which it’s suspected is by a French Old master.

Isabelle goes to be supportive of her sister but ends up having an affair with the older married Uncle of her sister's soon to be ex-husband as well as a young artist she meets in Paris. Are you still with me?

Ok then her parents (CHANNING and WATERSTON) arrive from California along with her penny pinching "cartoon" American brother and further predictable culture shock ensues.

There is a brief and amusing appearance by the excellent STEPHEN FRY ("Wilde", "A Civil Action", "Gosford Park" et al) as a quintessential English art expert but it’s too little too late in my opinion. The film really loses the plot (sic) with an attempt at a dramatic turn but the only real apparent reason for that is to give a chance for another French anti-American joke which is older than either the producer or director and they’re no spring chickens!

It’s not the worst film you’ll see this year if you must but it’s certainly not going into the top five list of any of those involved and in my opinion only merits .......