Le Divorce

dir. James Ivory

Opens Fri Aug 8 at Guild 45th and Meridian 16. The most passionate scene in Le Divorce occurs late in the film, as cultivated Frenchman Thierry Lhermitte stands at a counter at the Hermès store, looking for a farewell gift for his about-to-be-ex-mistress. He caresses one gaily colored silk scarf after another, happy in the business of civilized, grown-up amour.

Ah, Hermès scarves... here is something James Ivory can be ardent about.

Granted, it has been an easy target, the overstuffed pillows and decorous wallpaper of the Merchant Ivory team. So let me confess that I can be stirred by their regard for pretty things and throttled emotions. Unfortunately, Le Divorce robs Merchant Ivory of their period trappings; it is set in the present day (based on Diane Johnson's novel), thus conjuring up nightmarish memories of the team's 1989 Slaves of New York. The effect is like granddad coming into the party to rap with the young folk: The tone, the timing, the touch is wrong. Kate Hudson and the vaguely haunting Naomi Watts (who may be as permanently shadowed by Mulholland Dr. as Anthony Perkins was by Psycho) are sisters in Paris, but if this suggests the élan of expat adventure, forget it. They both act as though they've had the blood drained out of them; Ivory has the distinction of being the first director to dull Hudson's goldenrod glow. Her affair with the married Lhermitte is the one element here that sparks Ivory's feeling for the manners of love, but other plot lines (simultaneously labored and underdeveloped) intrude. Enough! Take us back to the country house of Howards End, and the contemplation of lovely fabrics. CLAUDE ROC

Camp

dir. Todd Graff

Opens Fri Aug 8 at

the Egyptian. Camp, Todd Graff's low-budget comedy about a summer camp for theatrically inclined teens, arrives in Seattle trailing a crowd-pleasing reputation and an impressive amount of critical praise. The crowd-pleasing rep is understandable--any film devoted to the dramatic exertions of pubescent misfits is sure to provide its share of enthralling hilarity. But the critical gushing is... bizarre. Because where several big-name critics claim to have witnessed "a triumphant minor miracle," I saw only a fatally klutzy teen soap opera, albeit one with some devilish twists, some NAMBLA-flavored eye candy, and a whole bunch of entertaining wigs (not to mention one super-sappy plot twist that literally had me gaping in horror). Still, if you've ever been brought to tears by anything written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, you will most likely cheer for Camp. DAVID SCHMADER

The Secret Lives of Dentists

dir. Alan Rudolph

Opens Fri Aug 8 at the Uptown and the Varsity. Alan Rudolph has always been a director whose ambitions surpass his talent. This is not to say that he is a terrible director, or even a bad one, but that his films--from Breakfast of Champions and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, to even The Moderns and Choose Me--have never been entirely successful. Robert Altman-lite is how I most often think of Rudolph, and while this may not be a completely fair characterization (after all, aren't most directors lite when compared to Altman?), Rudolph's constant reaching as a filmmaker has rarely allowed him a firm grasp of his material; his films tackle meaty subjects, to be sure, but the finished product is usually not the choicest cut of beef.

The Secret Lives of Dentists, Rudolph's latest, is a failure of a film. Worse, it is an inconsequential failure, barely alive enough to register while you watch it. Starring Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, and Denis Leary, it attempts to be a high-minded contemplation of matrimony, damaged mental states, and cowardice, but instead ends up being a combo of Fight Club and Thirtysomething, and the result can be summed up in a single word: ouch.

The story: Scott and Davis are married dentists who own a practice together. The parents of three young girls, their marriage has been on a steady downslope for several years--a downslope only made steeper by Davis' apparent infidelity. Catching sight of his wife pseudo in flagrante one evening, Scott, who is not only emotionally stunted but mustachioed as well (or is that the same thing?), retreats within himself rather than confronting his wife, creating an imaginary character (à la Tyler Durden--right down to the wardrobe and accessories) based on one of his more annoying patients (Denis Leary). The patient's advice: Dump the wife and kids and start anew.

And so it goes, with the bulk of the picture being taken up with Scott and Leary bickering, Hope and Scott failing to connect, and Scott wandering about in a major mope. The intended examination at play here is of Scott being in a state of paralysis thanks to his wife's cheating, since he's too nice of a guy to truly confront her and therefore bring the conflict to a head; the unintended result, sadly, is that the film itself is paralyzed.

In other hands, The Secret Lives of Dentists might have given birth to a nasty comedy, but in Rudolph's it merely trudges along to its predictable finale--rather than take a risk, Rudolph has delivered a somewhat pretentious drama sprinkled with an extremely light frosting of wit. This, in the end, may be the picture's most frustrating failing, for it's always a minor tragedy when a film's true potential is not only missed, but easily recognized as being missed by the audience. The Secret Lives of Dentists misses, and it misses big. BRADLEY STEINBACHER