Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Movie Review: French Girl (2024)

During my recent trip, there was obviously plenty of time and opportunity to catch some movies on the plane rides. Ultimately, there were four movies which I watched.

One of them was a Rom-Com, which is not something I normally would choose as my pick to watch on my own. However, I had never heard of this particular movie, although the title kind of intrigued me enough to take a look at the description. Then I saw that it was an American movie, although it takes part not in France, but in Québec.

Apparently, this movie had just come out earlier this year, although I had not heard anything about it. Had it come out in the movies? Or was it one of those movies which only was released on one of the streaming services, such as Netflix?

None of that mattered at that moment. It was here in front of me, and I thought it sounded interesting and worth considering. We still had maybe a couple of hours or so left in our flight over Africa, and it was not a particularly long movie. So despite Rom-Coms not generally being my thing, if you will, I nevertheless decided to go ahead and give this movie a shot.

And I was glad that I did. Once I got back home, it surprised me to learn that this movie generally seems to have gotten unimpressive reviews. It was a decent movie for what it was, and reminded me a bit of "Meet the Parents." It had that kind of a vibe to it.

Now, I will go ahead and review the movie, but be warned that from here on out, this review will include spoilers. So if you think you might like to see this movie and do not want to encounter any spoilers, you might want to stop reading here at this point.

***** SPOILERS*****

***** SPOILERS*****

***** SPOILERS*****


The movie stars Vanessa Hudgens as thae rather obnoxious Ruby Collins, Evelyne Brochu, who plays the "French" Québécois girl Sophie Tremblay, as well as Zach Braff (still best known, I believe, for his role in the sitcom "Scrubs). Braff's character is Gordon Kinski, a teacher in Brooklyn, but he feels a bit intimidated by the prospect of visiting his girlfriend's family in Québec, Canada.

Tremblay is an accomplished chef, and gets a chance to work as a high profile chef at an elite restaurant at the Château Frontenac. There are plenty of scenes which show the Old World charm of Québec City, which I appreciated. And while I was a bit worried, on some level, that there might be some Francophobe humor somewhere along the line, there really wasn't. That was refreshing.


Some shots of the Château Frontenac, the most photographed hotel in the world, in Québec City which I took during my visits to that city over the years:

 




Anyway, one of the things that comes as an amusing surprise is that Ruby Collins, the woman who will be conducting Tremblay's interview, and who clearly was a friend, actually was a bit more than that. In fact, they once were lesbian lovers, a fact that Gordon Kinski was blissfully unaware of. Once he finds out, it becomes a source of serious concern, because it seems like there are signs that the feelings between them are still very strong.

Every effort made by Gordon to fit in fails. In fact, much like in "Meet the Parents," everything that he does seems to exacerbate matters, sometimes to hilarious effect. He does not really speak French well, although he understands it better than he speaks it (which is something which I personally can relate to). Of course, he overcompensates once he begins to see Ruby not just as some kind of annoying (and sometimes abusive) potential boss, but a threat to his own romantic relationship with Tremblay.

In the end, however, this is a romantic comedy, and not overly serious. There are points where it seems like the relationship is over. But ultimately, love prevails.

While this was admittedly not the most original or imaginative movie in terms of overall plot (and what Rom-Coms are?), it nevertheless is a cute and funny one nevertheless. I was surprised that many people did not like it, but that hardly matters. Personally, I enjoyed it, and would even recommend the movie to any fans of Rom-Coms and/or Québécois culture.

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