French Girl

Ok so Zach is a klutz and apparently the most insensitive sensitive guy you could imagine. Zach is an English teacher so not a moron and yet is made to be ludicrously stupid to manufacture the moment/s of crisis. Nobody could be that dumb. When he does stand up and say things that he shouldn't say it's not to the complete jerks to whom a few harsh words are owed, it's to his partner. Ok, you might say that's his character but as a viewer it's disappointing and really annoying.

It has its funny moments but if Zach had just been . . . Intelligent it would have been so much better and it might have been believable that the girl actually wanted him. I sure didn't.

The term French girl describes a woman originating from France. This story is of a French-Canadian girl, not a French girl. French is also a language, naturally evolved as a dialect does, from the original language from France.

QUOTE from CBC entertainment review:

The premise is simple: Gordon wants to propose to Sophie, but she gets a job offer from her ex-girlfriend Ruby (played by the stunning Vanessa Hudgens) back in Quebec City before he can seal the deal.

That means meeting Sophie's very Québécois family on their farm, while an increasingly unhinged Ruby tries to sabotage their relationship and win Sophie back.

This is the first feature for director pair James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright, who also wrote the script.

It's a personal project: Both their fathers fell in love with their French Canadian mothers and moved to Quebec to start families.

Despite being first-time feature directors, the film is incredibly sharp, both in its comedy and its editing.

It hits its beats hard, and there are plenty of very funny moments.

The movie is part culture clash, part ensemble comedy, and owes a lot to Braff's experienced hand in rom-coms. As Gordon, he conjures an early Billy Crystal in his comedic timing and a bit of the bashfulness of a mid-career Grant - high praise in the rom-com world.

I found the first 20 or so minutes difficult to get through. First there is the drug that Gordon's dad gave him to calm him down for the flight and it made him act like a total jackass on the plane and in the airport terminal. Then there was the gathering of French Canadian family, all talking too loud and over each other at the table during a meal. All more annoying than entertaining. I thought to myself, "If this is how the whole movie is then I am going to abandon it."

Thankfully it eventually redeemed itself, things settled down and a pretty interesting story developed for the rest of the way.

Zach Braff is New York school teacher, Gordon Kinski. He is pretty much a dull, ordinary guy. His girlfriend is French Canadian actress Evelyne Brochu as Sophie-Jeanne Tremblay. She is a successful chef that soon gets extra notice. A person from her past contacts her, they are holding a contest of sorts and want her to compete for the job of Executive Chef at a new high-end restaurant in Quebec. That is the spark for the trip back home where her family runs a farm that produces superior lambs.

The person from the past is Vanessa Hudgens as Ruby Collins, a somewhat famous chef with a TV show and she is holding the competition for the new chef. Greatly complicating matters is she and Evelyne had more than just a professional relationship back in the day and Gordon does not know about it, as he is preparing to ask her to marry him.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Amazon Prime. The streaming version includes English subtitles when French is spoken. In spite of its very rough beginning it turned out to be a better movie than my wife and I expected it to be. Its IMDb rating seems just a bit low.

This is a very unfair rating for this film.

Do we not enjoy a cheesy rom com anymore? This movie was par for the course and a prototypical Zack Braff role where he plays the protagonist who you root for, and laugh at, as he continues to get in his own way. Think his character throughout nine seasons of scrubs. This movie had a similar plot line to a movie that he did with Jason Bateman, the ex, add a more attractive, villain, Vanessa, Hudgens, and a lot more spoken French requiring reading subtitles. But if you like that movie, or the Last Kiss, or Garden State, then this movie is also for you.

For the English original version, Canadian French characters keep their own voices and speak Québécois - the dialect of French speaking people in Québec and a large part of French Canadian outside Québec. Nice.

Ridiculously, for the French version, there are no Canadian translation, only a translation from France. Then Québécois characters are dubbed in Paris French - which they proudly named True French - instead of keeping the Canadian French voices. So if you are a Québécois and you don't want to feel that the New York guy is visiting Paris, listen to the original soundtrack and put French subtitles to understand the English characters.