Vol. 17, No. 25 – Sept 4 – Sept 17, 2024 – Movie Review

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
French Girl – Prime Video

3 out of 4 palm trees
Breeze rating from 1 to 4 palm trees, 4 being best.

Middle school teacher Gordon Kinski (Zach Braff) was excited for the last day of school as he had planned a romantic getaway with his girlfriend Sophie Tremblay (Evelyne Brochu) where unbeknownst to her he was going to propose. Sophie, who was a gourmet chef in New York, had just gotten a rave review in the New York Times that caught the eye of her past head chef Ruby Collins (Vanessa Hudgens) who showed up out of the blue after several years apart to ask Sophie to interview for the executive chef position in Ruby’s new Michelin 3-star restaurant in Quebec.

Sophie knew that would mean she would have to postpone her trip with Gordon, but Gordon knew it was Sophie’s dream so supported her choice to go and decided to join her on the trip to Canada. Sophie was originally from Canada and her parents Ginette (Isabelle Vincent) and Alphonse (Luc Picard) were looking forward to her visit and meeting her new boyfriend. Unfortunately, Gordon had taken a pill on the plane that his father gave him for nerves that caused him to be quite incapacitated which made a bad first impression with Sophie’s parents.

The first night with the family Gordon didn’t do well, accidentally kissed grandma on the the lips and revealing Sophie’s brother Junior’s secret to learn English and become a cop. Ruby arrived at dinner unexpectedly with Sophie’s dad’s favorite wine and took over for the rest of the evening. The next day Sophie headed off the begin her training for the job with Ruby, while Gordon was left home alone and decided to look through Sophie’s room to learn more about her and her past.

To his surprise, Gordon found photos of Sophie and Ruby from a past lesbian relationship and in his shock called his dad Peter for advise, who told him to propose to Sophie before she switched teams again. Gordon was found by Alphonse in the yard who invited him into the barn where he slaughtered a lamb, making Gordon very uncomfortable. Then Gordon went to talk to Junior to apologize for accidentally sharing their arrangement, and in asking about Ruby and Sophie learned Sophie broke up with Ruby because Ruby cheated numerous times and broke her heart.

At the restaurant Ruby didn’t favor Sophie, rather seemed to be even harder on her than the other two candidates. Meanwhile, Junior took Gordon to a MMA match and discovered Junior was and actual local MMA champion. After Junior beat the first challenger that was twice his size, he was challenged by his father Alphonse. Alphonse made a deal with Junior that if he won that Junior had to work on the farm and if Junior won he could take English lessons and pursue being a cop. Gordon jumped in the ring and in trying to keep them apart accidentally knocked out Alphonse.

Back at the farm Ruby offered to film her cooking show at the farm to highlight their lamb and help save the farm. The show was a great success and Ruby committed to using Tremblay lamb at her restaurant. Then Ruby offered Sophie the job in front of her family and friends, and Gordon got drunk and due to his extreme jealousy made several offensive comments about Ruby and Sophie, including that Sophie slept her way into the job so she asked him to leave, backed up by Ruby.

Gordon booked a flight home but his dad told him he needed to fight, so he decided to surprise Sophie in the most extreme way by dawning some pantaloons and headed for the restaurant. There he saw Ruby kiss Sophie, then took off and stole Ruby’s car not knowing that Sophie had punched Ruby in the face. Gordon crashed Ruby’s car, but after coming to Sophie asked him to marry her having found the ring when he ended up unconscious in the hospital after the crash.

Runtime: 1h 50m