Hog wild

>> La Loi du cochon is an intelligent suspense thriller

by JASON BOGDANERIS

You might think a movie set on a pig farm in the middle of nowhere would be a bore. La Loi du cochon is anything but. Quebec director Éric Canuel has made a suspense-filled thriller with the most unglamorous backdrop imaginable. The homely surroundings actually end up enhancing the film's power, making the viewer feel like an eyewitness to a news item in progress.

The story revolves around Stéphane, a compulsive gambler drowning in debt, who, along with her sister Bettie, has inherited their father's pig farm. Bettie is the sweet, innocent nurturer who treats the pigs lovingly, playing classical music to soothe them when she's not around. To supplement their meagre farm income she has become a surrogate mother for a local couple, and uses the advance to buy state of the art cages for her beloved swine.

Stéphane's moneymaking schemes are far less innocent however. She has made a deal to let two greasy thugs grow pot on their farmland in exchange for a cut of the profits. When the bank moves in to foreclose, she decides to double-cross the duo, setting in motion a series of events which spiral out of control. Soon Paquette and "Chose" (his druggy sidekick) get wind of the scheme and then follow the trail straight to the farm.

Eventually the two gangsters hold the sisters hostage, demanding to be reimbursed for their stolen weed. Bettie's impending pregnancy and the arrival of the surrogate parents adds another dimension to the story. There are some priceless moments as the very middle-class couple is bullied by Bettie's "cousins," oblivious to the danger they're in. One very funny scene has Paquette's shady doctor arriving in a Chinese restaurant take-out car as an emergency replacement for the midwife. The story climaxes with a few more unexpected twists and double-crosses but the tension never lets up as the balance of power between victim and victimizer shifts at every unexpected turn.

The performances are excellent all around, with villains so real they seem to have emerged from a Journal de Montreal police blotter. Isabel Richer is also outstanding, portraying Stéphane as an essentially good woman forced into amoral behaviour in a struggle for survival. The script is very clever without ever seeming contrived. A deeper message about insensitivity and tolerance is there if you look, but doesn't intrude on a very well-crafted story.

La Loi du cochon opens Friday, Oct. 5