Survival kit: Jean-Francois Pouliot's Seducing Doctor Lewis

TAKE ONE, Dec, 2003 by Maurie Alioff

According to Jean-Francois Pouliot, the meteoric success of his film, Seducing Doctor Lewis (La Grande Seduction), arose from the audience need it fulfills. The picture "cuts through our resistance to having positive feelings about human nature," the vivacious and boyishly enthusiastic director told me on a damp October Montreal morning. On top of its optimism, Seducing Doctor Lewis "transports you beyond day-to-day life. It's almost a fable, a fairy tale. The place you go to is unknown; you've never seen it before." The movie's title, referring to its storyline, also describes Pouliot's relationship with his audience. Ideologically correct tsk-tsking about audience manipulation is not on his radar. Manoeuvering viewers into abandoning themselves to a story, as long as it's done thoughtfully and with respect, is what movie directors should know how to do.

The positive vibe on Seducing Doctor Lewis started in May when it was screened as the closing film of the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 2003. The audience lapped it up, media types at a celebratory lunch chirped happily and buyers approached Roger Frappier, whose company, Max Films, produced the $5.7-million project. Then in July, just after the film was the public's best-feature choice at Comedia (the film component of Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival), it opened wide in Quebec and broke box-office records for a summer release of a homegrown movie.

Part of a trend that included Denys Arcand's Les Invasions barbares, Pouliot's film did better numbers than massively supported releases like The Hulk, Pirates of the Caribbean and Terminator 3, earning over $6 million during its inital Quebec release. Then it was a Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival, closed the Independent Feature Film Project Market (IFP) in New York City and took the Bayard d'Or, top prize at the Festival of Francophone Films in Namur, Belgium. The packed house in Toronto's cavernous Elgin Theatre "was one of the best audiences," Pouliot told me. Although he worried about issues like cultural differences and language, as he did in Cannes, both audiences were "there from the very, very beginning," even applauding an early sight gag. "They loved it, something that did not happen in New York." To gauge reaction at the IFP, Pouliot says he used a time-honoured method: a lengthy post-screening piss. Wile the indie types in the washroom liked the film, they didn't exactly give it up for Seducing Doctor Lewis.

The news about the movie sweetened even more when remake inquiries came in from the United States. Yet, however elated Pouliot might be about this prospect, he wants to see his original version earn all possible returns before Americans do their take on the story. Clearly, the film has the kind of universal appeal that ranks as the Holy Grail of the Canadian film industry. Watching Seducing Doctor Lewis, you can easily imagine it being transposed from Quebec to Maine, or northern California. Written by Ken Scott (who previously wrote the 2000 hit La Vie apres l'amour), the bittersweet comedy unfolds on a remote island where fishermen who can't earn a living collect welfare cheques and mourn the loss of the days when they had independence and self-respect.

The picture opens on Ste-Marie-La-Mauderne's only village, nestling under a starry sky. We hear a chorus of hyberbolic orgasms, and then exhalations of smoke puff out of the village chimneys. That was the storybook past, when happy lovemaking capped a satisfying working day. In the present, romantic moonlight is replaced by wan, North Atlantic greyness and unshaven men trudging to the post office to collect their government dole. But before the islanders collapse into total inertia, they have one last shot at redemption. An entrepreneur will hire them to work in a small factory he intends to build on Ste-Marie, but only if they meet an insurance company stipulation that they have a resident doctor. The businessman, played by 1970s vedette Donald Piton, also demands a hefty bribe.

It's a classic set up. Ste-Marie has never had its own doctor, and when the islanders mass-mail a solicitation to every physician in Quebec, they are greeted by dead silence. Scott's plot kicks in when, by a twist of fate and some benevolent blackmail, a young doctor is forced to leave Montreal and spend a mouth on the windswept outport. For the rest of the picture, the locals try to entice Christopher Lewis David Boutin) into a long-term commitment by satisfying his every need and desire. They research him thoroughly before he arrives, and when he is installed in what they deem to be the island's classiest home, they promptly tap his phone. Dr. Lewis's conversations with his girlfriend reveal his favourite foods, taste in music and sexual preferences. The islanders already know that he is an obsessive cricket fan, so they pretend to play and love the game. When Christopher gets frustrated by his inability to catch fish, a villager dives under his boat to hook a frozen one onto his line. Meanwhile, Germain (Raymond Bouchard), the village leader who dreamt up the scheme, becomes a wise, caring father to Dr. Lewis, someone who obviously never had one. Throughout all these shenanigans a beautiful young woman (Lucie Laurier) distances herself from the scam and needles Dr. Lewis, but her smile holds promise.