Un village presque parfait (2014)

12 years ago, in the little town in Brittany where I spend as much time as I can, I saw a great French-Canadian comedy, complete with thick rural Canadian accents, about a small town with no jobs left that needed to convince a doctor to settle there so that they could get a new factory, and jobs. The movie was called *La grande séduction," and it was a very enjoyable movie.

A decade later, the French have decided to remake it, repeating much of it verbatim, but shifting the locale to a small town in SE France, high in the very beautiful Pyrenees. I'm not quite sure what the point was, other than to spare the French the effort of having to understand a thick French-Canadian accent. After 12 years, I can't say how much if anything new has been added with this version. A lot of it was very familiar.

But all that said, this is one very enjoyable movie, as its predecessor was. If you have ever lived in a small, out of the way town, as I do when I am in France, you know what it's like when the jobs leave and the businesses follow. Eventually the school closes, and then the post office. Finally, even the mayor's office is only open a few hours a week. It's sad.

But it's also noble. These folk don't want a handout. They don't want to live on welfare. They want a chance to earn an honest living - just like the farmers currently manifesting in rural France.

And, it must be said, they want a chance to retain the small-town life that they love, and that does, in fact, have a great deal to offer that Paris cannot provide.

Granted, this movie does border on the feel-good variety, though it never overflows into American sentimental. Still, the characters are not one-dimensional; they are human beings you enjoy spending time with.

So treat yourself, and get to know them.

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12.9.2015

I watched this movie again tonight. It really is an enjoyable film. Yes, you can see much of the plot coming before you get there. But the characters come of as very real - which is actually the major issue in the movie - and not as caricatures. And you really grow to like them.

It makes the big city/small village argument very clearly, with no gray in between. But frankly, if you've ever lived in Paris and a small town like this, the argument is pretty clear, at least for me.

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