The best sex scene in “The Grand Seduction” takes place on the phone, but its prurient edge isn’t anything you might imagine. It is eyebrow-raising fun that’s indicative of the whole preposterous story. Actually, the grand seduction of “The Grand Seduction” hardly touches the sexual realm at all.
A motivated citizen of a tiny and economically depressed town on the east coast of Canada drives the whole film on the following premise: “right now, lies is all we got.” To replace local fishermen’s livelihoods that have dried up, a big oil company might be lured to build its “petro-chemical byproduct repurposing” factory. Somehow, fooling the bigwigs is only the background seduction.
The grand seduction involves a man coerced into serving as the doctor for thirty days in Tickle Cove, Newfoundland. Everyone in the town must conspire to convince this so easily fooled city boy that his life belongs in Tickle Cove. Somehow, the biggest obstacle to being awarded the factory is having a resident doctor in a town too isolated to ever attract one. Only the would-be romantic interest refuses to consciously seduce the young physician.
All the obstacles and lies tossed together make for a movie experience held together by makeshift planning and spontaneous blarney. It’s spun by a sort of middle aged and an old aged version of adorable (Brendan Gleeson and Gordon Pinsent). They hold it together well enough, with the necessary complement of awkwardly committed sustainers of the web of lies. Taylor Kitsch plays Dr. Duped, a handsome puppy of a man, with the same charm as most everyone else in this likable flick.
The script shrugs through the truth of that “petro-chemical byproduct repurposing” factory as it skittles, all in all, through the truth about lying.
Track down “Waking Ned Devine” to see this sort of quaint and quirky artifice done better, but it’s no lie that “The Grand Seduction” is a satisfying trip to the movies.