French Girl, 2024.
Written and Directed by James A. Woods and Nicholas Wright.
Starring Zach Braff, Evelyne Brochu, Vanessa Hudgens, Antoine Olivier Pilon, Charlotte Aubin, Luc Picard, Alex Woods, Catherine De Sève, Isabelle Vincent, Muriel Dutil, Luc-Martial Dagenais, and Melia Charlotte Cressaty.
SYNOPSIS:
Follows Gordon Kinski, a high school teacher from Brooklyn, who goes with his girlfriend and chef Sophie Tremblay to her hometown of Quebec City where she is testing for the Michelin 3-star restaurant of super-chef Ruby Collins.
The timing and specificity required to make jokes land, especially slapstick humor, aren’t easy, as French Girl newcomer writing/directing team James A. Woods and Nicholas Wright have discovered here. One can see the potential in giving the tried-and-true meet-the-parents narrative a cultural kick by bringing a Brooklyn resident to Québec city and using French differences as a source for comedy, but the script somewhat stops doing that and instead relies on cheap gags that would be shocking and funny if there was more skill leading up to the punchline.
Unfortunately, listening to Zach Braff’s Shakespeare-loving middle school English teacher, Gordon Kinski, recite the insanity around him is usually funnier than what happens (he comments on getting roped into an underground mixed martial arts family fight club, a funny line referring to a letdown sequence.) The ensemble has the delivery down, but the slapstick shenanigans feel forced. They sometimes get crude and forget that a joke is funnier if the characters are treated like actual people and not just punching bags.
Some of the material here also feels dated, following around a well-meaning Gordon who genuinely wants to make a positive impression on his chef girlfriend Sophie Tremblay’s (Evelyne Brochu) family – he does not, unknowingly consuming a Quaalude on the plane mistakenly given to him over medication to calm anxiety by his kooky novelist father who desperately wants his son to bring him back an immigration passport; it’s a hilarious small turn from William Fichtner – but spend most of the film nervously jealous that the wealthy reality TV woman letting Sophie try out for an executive position at her new restaurant, Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens), is also her former lover.
As nothing goes right throughout this quasi-vacation, Gordon increasingly becomes concerned that the more adventurous, ambitious, and exciting Ruby is scheming to steal Sophie back from his uneventful but loving self. The Frenchness in this film seems to have started and stopped with a few jokes about sexual freeness and a lesbian former flame.
Later on, there is a segment involving duck hunting, painting the Canadian-French as gun-crazy as Americans, so perhaps the point is also suggesting that the cultures are also similar in many ways. Aside from a brilliant joke that sees Gordon showing Sophie’s brother Jean-Claude Van Damme movies to help him learn English to pass an exam to become a cop, there isn’t too much humor that feels inspired by French culture.
The jokes tend to end up fairly broad and unamusing. Gordon has to help butcher a baby lamb in preparation for dinner, and the crazy old dementia-ridden matriarch gets confused and steals the wedding ring he plans to propose to Sophie with, meaning that he spends a good portion of the movie creeping the family out when searching for isolated moments to be with her and pull the ring off her finger, and he doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift. Even worse, French Girls vindicates his childish whining and concerns over his girlfriend spending time with another woman. Some jokes are frustratingly obvious (you know what will happen as soon as Gordon picks up a gun, based on a mildly funny running gag prior.)
Again, Zach Braff is doing his best to sell everything that happens as wild, out-of-control shenanigans that need to be seen to be believed, but the seeing part leaves something funny to be desired. French Girl simply isn’t fresh, funny, or French enough to escape the outdated trappings of the meet-the-parents formula.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
