BIG NEWS FROM GRAND ROCK (Daniel Perlmutter). 87 minutes. Opens Friday (February 27). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
Where to watch: iTunes
Desperate to save his dying small-town newspaper, bright-eyed Leonard (Ennis Esmer) turns movie plots into heartwarming front-page stories – only to find his work under scrutiny by a big-city reporter (Meredith MacNeill) when he writes about secret medical experiments being conducted in his tiny Ontario town.
The premise of Big News From Grand Rock feels like it could have made a great B-story on Corner Gas, if Dog River’s Blockbuster were still open. But what might power a fun 22 minutes of TV proves unworkably naive at an hour and a half, and writer/director Daniel Perlmutter‘s insistent folksiness becomes exasperating and ultimately exhausting.
At least the actors put in the work. As Leonard, Esmer makes obliviousness charming: it’s like he missed that one J-school class about ethics and can’t understand why everyone’s so pissed at him. And MacNeill’s sketch-comedy instincts, honed on Man Stroke Woman and This Hour Has 22 Minutes, keep peeking out in the conflict between professional offence and an unexpected attraction to the man she’s certain is a fraud.
Kristin Booth and Peter Keleghan have a lot of fun as Leonard’s newsroom colleagues, making meals of their characters’ single respective notes of mousiness and pomposity. Someone should give them a show.
