La Grande Séduction

"Seducing Doctor Lewis" (or "La grande seduction") is the story of a remote Canadian community, an old fishing town, hoping to seduce a big-city doctor to move there so that a factory will open and take the town's population of 125 people off of public welfare. Following the precedent of "Doc Hollywood" and "Northern Exposure," the film highlights the attractive simplicity of small town life and makes it almost as irresistible to the audience as it is supposed to be to Doctor Lewis. The film has a couple small, but glaring, conceptual similarities to its predecessors: 1) as in "Doc Hollywood," the doctor is a plastic surgeon--i.e. just the sort of person who needs an adorable small town to straighten out his priorities, and 2) as in "Northern Exposure" the doctor is looking at a limited, 5-year stint in the town, something that seems more plausible than seeing a young doctor dedicating his entire future career to a town of just over 100 people. All in all, "Seducing Doctor Lewis" is the seductive little film it sets out to be, nearly mustering a charm equal to "Waking Ned Divine." And one has to admire the filmmakers for sidestepping the potential clichés that the film's ending could have stooped to. David Boutin, also, plays a very likable doctor, while looking strangely like a Dominique Pinon whose body has been stretched to leading-man proportions.

If you had the chance to see this movie in theatres, you probably noticed that everybody was laughing throughout the film. In other words, it's funny and funny. Well written script, it's unexpected all the time. Good cast choice as well. What I like is that it's a caricaturization of the hospital situation in regional Quebec. Congratulations guys!

It's good to see a movie that capitalizes on three basic rules: a good story, a good storyteller and good characters. When you get all three in the same movie, you don't need a lot of FX to achieve a good movie. This one has them all and you should simply judge for yourself.

What a pleasure to see a film like this from Canada! With our penchant for serious, naval gazing, "deep", issue-laden movies, it is so refreshing to find a solid story with solid characters that is entertaining, creative and unexpected. Along with Les Invasions Barbares, this is a banner year for Canada!

Hopefully La Grand Seduction will be our "Waking Ned Devine" or "Full Monty"...a breakout film that will be received and recognized around the world. It is a long time since I've had tears in my eyes from laughing in a film. It is true that the sudden turn of events at the very end of the film is a little forced, but the rest of the film is so great that it is easily forgiven.

I definitely recommend catching this one in theatres soon!

What is it about remote coastal communities that makes them so perfect for feel-good funnies such as these? There's something evocative and atavistic about the sea and fishing folk. Maybe it's somewhere in the roots of all of us, and we never fail to delight in seeing those apparently simple folk, apparently locked into a fading past, nevertheless conspire to outsmart the sophisticated city slicker who comes into their midst. I must go down to the sea again, and even on a balmy Perth summer evening at one of our beautiful outdoor cinemas I could almost smell the cod and kelp and feel the keen north Atlantic wind as it tore through Ste Marie la Mauderne.

The plot was indeed clever and ironical. Dr Chris Lewis was NOT ultimately seduced by cricket, beef stroganoff, fishing, "lucky" $5 bills placed in his path, fusion jazz, nor even the lovely Eve, whom we all thought would prove the clincher in a Hollywood "boy gets girl" finale. No, not at all. He was seduced by the honest and genuine needs of a community who felt the need to resort to every degree of dishonesty to try and win his heart with all those things which ultimately proved trivial.

Congratulations, Canada Francophone, this one was a real beauty. Dix points!