French Girl movie storyline. Sweet Gordon, an affable English teacher in Brooklyn, has beaten the odds; a French Girl has fallen in love with him and he’s fallen even harder back. But their future is thrown into limbo when she interviews for an executive chef position in her hometown of Quebec City. To Gordon’s dismay her future boss also happens to be her former lover, a celebrity Chef with oceanic eyes and a hit TV show. Good luck Gordon.
French Girl is an American romantic comedy film directed by James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright and starring Zach Braff, Vanessa Hudgens, William Fichtner, Charlotte Aubin, Evelyne Brochu, Luc Picard, Antoine Olivier Pilon, Isabelle Vincent, Muriel Dutil, Rémi Goulet, Hazel Nugent and Ed Weeks. The screenplay was written by James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright
Film Review for French Girl
“French Girl” is a love triangle farce that’s mostly set in Quebec City but takes place on Planet Rom-com where bipedal characters act out in ways that rarely resemble human behavior.
In New York, a middle school teacher named Gordon (Zach Braff) yearns to measure up to his girlfriend, Sophie (Evelyne Brochu), a French Canadian chef and the kind of aspirational Francophile ingénue who, within the film’s first minutes, roams a farmers market in a print dress, blonde curls tumbling down to her straw basket of fresh produce. (What, no baguette?)
Enter Sophie’s ex, Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens), a name-dropping celebrity restaurateur who engineers a ploy that brings all three past and present lovers up to Canada for a stomach-churning visit with Sophie’s noisy, knife-wielding, octagon-brawling family. Gordon is immediately attacked by a swan; worse, Ruby renders him to blubber as skillfully as if he were a roasted poulet.
The filmmakers James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright push their script dangerously close to parody. But there are at least a dozen good zingers in here, particularly a three-part punchline from Ed Weeks as a snobbish food critic that kicks off with, “Have you ever seen an emaciated dolphin?”
The trouble is, none of the performances are on the same wavelength: Hudgens is an outrageously hilarious monster; Brochu, an earnest heroine; and the increasingly unhinged Braff tries too hard to be empathetic. The more he wants us to sympathize with his hapless character, the more unforgivable Gordon’s actions feel. By the climax, Gordon should be in relationship and criminal jail. And no je suis désolé will make the ending taste sweeter than a poisoned mint at the end of a strange meal.
French Girl (2024)
Directed by: James A. Woods, Nicolas Wright
Starring: Zach Braff, Vanessa Hudgens, William Fichtner, Charlotte Aubin, Evelyne Brochu, Luc Picard, Antoine Olivier Pilon, Isabelle Vincent, Muriel Dutil, Rémi Goulet, Hazel Nugent, Ed Weeks
Screenplay by: James A. Woods, Nicolas Wright
Production Design by: Jean-Andre Carriere
Cinematography by: Jean-François Lord
Film Editing by: Yvann Thibaudeau
Costume Design by: Mariane Carter
Set Decoration by: Sylvain Mendez
Art Direction by: Rosemary Arroyave
Music by: Paco Monnier Frederic
MPAA Rating: R for language and steamy sexual references.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: March 15, 2024
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