The Grand Seduction

A small harbour town in Newfoundland. The fishing is finished and everyone lives on welfare. A factory could open, but one condition is a resident doctor. To keep the young doctor who has come for a month's trial, the whole town starts performing: they play the cricket he loves as though they love it, they listen in on his phone calls, they script the conversations he will run into in the street. The subject is not the lie but a community forced to make itself likeable. While deceiving the man the town also learns something unwelcome about itself: living on assistance has already taken something from them. The form is soft and friendly to the audience. The comedy humiliates nobody and every character is drawn as endearing, which is also the film's risk, because it softens the hardness of the subject. It is an English-language remake of the 2003 Quebec film La grande séduction. Shooting took place in Newfoundland, in the town of Trinity, and the landscape is its strongest card. It did better in Canada than expected. Brendan Gleeson plays the town's ringleader and Taylor Kitsch the doctor, with Gordon Pinsent also in the cast. Don McKellar directs. Who it is for: viewers who like small-town comedy and Gleeson. Who it is not for: anyone expecting sharp satire; the film resolves everything sweetly.