The Grand Seduction

Even if you’ve not seen French-Canadian film La Grande Seduction, this English-language remake will give you déjà vu. Its sentimental plot – a fishing community hatch a plan to entice an oil company to set up shop in their village that hinges on the residents convincing a city slicker plastic surgeon to take on the position of town doctor – is essentially a crude cut-and-shut of Local Hero and Doc Hollywood.

Thankfully director Don McKellar keeps the mood the right side of cloying, with the film’s gentle rhythms matched by the languorous charms of Brendan Gleeson, who plays the town’s scurrilous mayor. Even the seemingly cursed Kitsch, as the credulous MD, finds a vehicle for the easy-going charisma he showcased on Friday Night Lights. If McKellar could have just injected some of the eccentricity of his brilliant debut, Last Night, into proceedings we might have had an Ealing-esque social farce. Instead we’re left with a comedy that’s wry but prosaic. [Jamie Dunn]