THE GRAND SEDUCTION (Don McKellar) Rating: NNN
Don McKellar’s The Grand Seduction is an English-language remake of Jean-François Pouliot’s 2003 comedy Seducing Dr. Lewis, with the action transposed from rural Quebec to a depressed Newfoundland harbour community.
The plot is otherwise the same: the locals (including Brendon Gleeson and Gordon Pinsent) scheme to trick a big-city doctor (Taylor Kitsch) into moving there in order to secure a factory and stave off financial ruin.
Directing a script by Michael Dowse and Seducing screenwriter Ken Scott, McKellar crafts a gentle, pleasant farce that takes its time setting up stakes and defining the characters, giving the cast (which also includes Liane Balaban, Mary Walsh and Cathy Jones) room to play.
It’s a movie less interested in belly laughs than in generating a constant hum of contentment, and it works perfectly well for the material.
See our interview with co-star and Toronto-native Liane Balaban here.
