Imagine a tourtière (French Canadian meat pie) with a Quebecois pie crust filled with an American romantic comedy. Well, maybe the pie crust is the American romantic comedy. French Girl is a mix of both: you get some authenticity from the setting of Quebec City, Quebecois actors, and Quebecois French.
Zach Braff and Vanessa Hudgens are the reasons to watch the American romantic comedy part. They are the reasons not to watch French Girl for the good Quebecois parts.
Let's get caught up on the basics. Gordon (Braff) is a school teacher in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, chef Sophie-Jeanne Tremblay (Évelyne Brochu). Sophie-Jeanne gets a chance to work in a restaurant back home in Quebec City owned by Ruby (Hudgens). Ruby is famous for being a chef on TV and [drama] the ex-romantic partner of Sophie-Jeanne.
The couple go to Quebec City so Sophie-Jeanne can audition and he can meet her family.
We know romantic comedies aren't meant to be realistic. Maybe French Girl offers too much realism in the saga of Sophie-Jeanne's family: Alphonse (Luc Picard), Mammie (Muriel Dutil), Junior (Antoine Olivier Pilon), Ginette (Isabelle Vincent), and Juliette (Charlotte Aubin).
James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright (writers and directors) write Sophie-Jeanne as being way more in love than Gordon, which proves she is a better actor than the other 2 leads. We get zero sense of why he is in love with her. Gordon is in a relationship with a French-speaking woman (not girl) and can't even speak the language. All too remnant of Braff's clueless American character in Montréal he did in a Canadian film more than about a decade ago — The High Cost of Living.
Braff's character has the startling ability to understand French, even Quebecois French, instantaneously yet not speak the language in response. It's comical yet there was no laughter.
Canadian film review: The High Cost of Living
There is zero chemistry with Brochu and Braff as well as Brochu and Hudgens. Woods and Wright leave Brochu to play off one-dimensional characters.
Braff's character makes every mistake imaginable in an unrealistic (yet realistic for a romantic comedy) fashion. Her family is amazingly tolerant despite the lack of chemistry.
Braff's interaction with her brother Junior is significant. Junior struggles with English (still better than Braff's French) but that is because his character needs to pass an English test to be a cop. The wild part is that this is the best relationship in the film; not sure romantic comedies work like this.
The Quebecois characters get somewhat fleshed out, though the writers treat her sister Juliette as less than an afterthought. Juliette reads lines but doesn't get to be a true character. It's almost as if Sophie Dupuis (Solo) poorly drew this female character.
Canadian film notebook: Évelyne Brochu gets caught in a love triangle in French Girl
Bilingual Canadian actors tend to flow from French to English
Gordon mentions the Plains of Abraham. We do see the couple in the lower part of the city by the water. There are plenty of shots of Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, a prominent co-star of the film.
Woods and Wright were smart in putting together a great Quebecois soundtrack, including Robert Charlebois.
The use of the last name Tremblay is very common in Quebec, an inside joke that most of the American audience will not get.
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French Girl is likely better than a terrible American romantic comedy. If you enjoy terrible American romantic comedies, you might not appreciate the Quebecois influence of this film. If you really enjoy Zach Braff being clueless in French Canada, we have 2 Canadian films for you to watch.
French Girl has had a theatrical release in Canada and is available on Amazon Prime Video in the United States.
video credits: Paramount Movies
photo credit: French Girl
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