Review
SEDUCING DOCTOR LEWIS
Starring Raymond Bouchard, David Boutin and Lucie Laurier
Directed by Jean-François Pouliot
Opens Friday, April 2
Globe Cinema
Even for those not easily reeled in by broad, populist comedy, Seducing Doctor Lewis offers a realistic premise as bait to set its goofy hook and then keeps tension on the line with strong characters and a witty script until its audience is landed, writhing with laughter.
The comedy, released last summer in its native Quebec under its French title La Grande Séduction, gets away with boatloads of silliness by giving its story a relevant social context – in this case, the diminishing prospects for rural communities in a country where more and more people are converging in large urban centres. In the film, a group of unemployed fishermen on the island of Ste. Marie-La-Mauderne seek to entice a company to build a factory in their remote village so residents can get off welfare. But in order to attract the company to their town, they must first persuade a doctor to take up permanent residence there – no easy task for a sleepy little fishing village with a population of 120.
Desperate, they manage – through a series of amusing contretemps – to bribe coked-up Montreal doctor Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) to spend one month in Ste. Marie-La-Mauderne. Immediately, the seduction begins, as the islanders use every duplicitous means at their disposal, and even more fishing metaphors, to haul in their catch. Despite their provincial charm, it will take some convincing to get the obnoxious and patrician urban hipster to spend the rest of his days in a place he finds "quaint" at best.
Although plenty of laughs come from the film’s fish-out-of-water scenario, it is the intrigue that elevates Seducing Doctor Lewis above the clichéd story of the country bumpkins versus the city slicker. After all, the villagers’ dignity is at stake, and their stalwart leader Germaine (Raymond Bouchard) becomes particularly adept at outfoxing the good doctor, who rarely, if ever, suspects any hidden agenda. As the townspeople learn the fine art of persuasion, we are treated to running gags about cricket (the sport, not the insect), foot fungus and an obsequious bank manager who desperately wants to avoid being replaced by – "don’t say it" – un guichet automatique.
By addressing issues such as mechanization, urbanization, downsizing and the lengths to which some communities must go to survive, Seducing Doctor Lewis uses its cloak of jokes to smuggle relevant social commentary into what amounts to a charming, yet unconventional, love story. Any worries about the film being of interest only to a Quebec audience were settled finally when it won an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It has subsequently been nominated for 11 Genie awards, as well. Chances are that audiences in the rest of Canada will swallow it hook, line and sinker. |
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