Canadian cheese

>> Men With Brooms is English Canada’s answer to Les Boys

by MATTHEW HAYS

You’ve got to hand it to Canadians. We’re very, very good at wringing our hands over the state of our feature films. Why does no one see them? Why can’t we create a popular national cinema? Lord knows, we’re good at experimental shorts, documentaries and animation (our record at Cannes and the Oscars is proof of that), but when it comes to feature-length movies, we just don’t seem to be able to make big hits.

Some might argue that there’s nothing terribly wrong with that. Canada tried, quite valiantly, to make a box-office success in Hollywood biopic form with Bethune, and that didn’t work. Why force something if it’s just not succeeding? That question ran through my mind rather repeatedly as I sat through the latest Canuck opus, Men With Brooms. This is a very conscious effort to make a brazenly Canadian movie; a romcom set amid the fascinating world of curling, it’s got gags about beavers, lots of beer guzzling and an inexplicable running joke about our involvement in the American space program.

It’s basically as dire as it sounds. Paul Gross, the Due South star, co-writes (both the script and the music), directs and stars in Men With Brooms. It’s a movie that’s clearly meant to have everything in it: romance, comedy, pathos, suspense (who will win that final curling match?—stay tuned!), etc. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you know the drill.

Sadly, everything about the film feels clumsy in that ultra-Canadian way. The jokes feel forced and painful. One young couple have to have sex in odd places and at odd times as they’re desperate to conceive. (Get it? I didn’t either.) Then there’s Gross looking grossed out as Leslie Nielsen massages a cow’s sphincter in order to get it to have a bowel movement. Now that’s comedy! (The use of Nielsen in a non-ironic role seems particularly odd; ever since Airplane!, the man has become an icon of silliness. Putting him in a semi-serious role requiring that he play moments of pathos seems about as appropriate as asking Tom Jones to sing at a funeral.) Even the American-style product placements feel clunky: at one glaringly awkward point, a sports announcer crams a can of Pepsi in his face.

The various soap operas that swirl about are both predictable and weak. Molly Parker has a drinking problem; Gross must come to terms with estranged dad (Nielsen); everyone has to get over the death of a local patriarch. And then, the film’s attempt at a burning question: can they win the game?

So, maybe I’m wrong about Men With Brooms. Perhaps this film will do for English Canada and curling what the Les Boys franchise did for

francophone Quebec and hockey. Maybe anyone even remotely interested in curling will flock to see this film and it’ll shoot to the top of the box-office charts. Merchandise will fly off the racks, sequels will follow and then, the natural given after a film proves successful anywhere: plenty of derivative knockoffs.
In that case, God help this country. :

Men With Brooms opens Friday, March 8