In their careful renderings of celebrated classics, past and contemporary, the team of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala are frequently guilty of extreme literalism, of honoring their texts by choosing the path of least resistance. Occasionally, great performances justify their fidelity or at least give it dimension, as in the one-two punch of Howards End and The Remains Of The Day. But more often, their work lacks any distinctive flavor or insight to animate the text for another medium. They're into translation, not interpretation. A delightful comedy of manners lurks somewhere within Le Divorce, their adaptation of Diane Johnson's beloved 1997 novel, but finding it feels like going on a scavenger hunt, thanks to the filmmakers' focus on stuffing in the full complement of characters and subplots. Anchored securely in Henry James territory, the story angles toward a saber-toothed consideration of American and European social mores, but the film dulls all the rough edges, favoring pleasant and disposable wit over more cutting and provocative approaches. A terrific cast, especially around the fringes, goes a long way toward riding out the dramatic shifts in tone, but even they can't reconcile the amusingly frothy relationship banter with incidents of attempted suicide and murder. Some of the film's diffuse storytelling may come from a shift in perspective: The novel was originally narrated by the Jamesian figure of an American in Paris, but Jhabvala's script turns her into merely the lumpiest element in a vast bouillabaisse. Played by Kate Hudson, she's a college dropout who visits the city just as sister Naomi Watts' beloved French husband (Melvil Poupaud) leaves her for a Russian mistress. Already frazzled by the prospect of a broken home, Watts loses her bearings as she's forced into a divorce, and discovers that her moral values are not shared by the French legal system or her husband's wealthy, duplicitous family. Meanwhile, Hudson finds work organizing papers for a popular American author (Glenn Close) and fools around with two radically different men, one a poor young leftist (Romain Duris) and the other a rich politician twice her age (Thierry Lhermitte). One minor element in Le Divorce, the sale of a disputed and possibly valuable painting that once belonged to Watts' family, welcomes scene-stealing bits by Bebe Neuwirth and Stephen Fry as appraisers with clashing motives. A better film might have emphasized that, instead of spending time with the Russian mistress' psychotically jealous husband (Matthew Modine), who is somehow allowed to hijack the climactic scene. But as ever, Ivory and Jhabvala's refusal to make tough choices and give their version some direction leaves them stranded in the middle of the road.