French Immersion (2011)

A contemporary comedy about five Anglo-Canadians - actually four Anglos and a New Yorker - who find themselves in a two-week total immersion French program in a remote town in Northern ... See full summary »

Director:

Kevin Tierney

Writers:

Jefferson Lewis, Kevin Tierney

Stars:

Oluniké Adeliyi, Dorothée Berryman, Jean-Guy Bouchard

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Oluniké Adeliyi	...	Aretha
Dorothée Berryman	...	Thérése Tremblay
Jean-Guy Bouchard	...	Euclide Tremblay
Pascale Bussières	...	Sylvie Tremblay
Martha Burns	...	Cathy
Robert Charlebois	...	Senator Tramblay
Julie Caron	...	Denise Tremblay
Gavin Crawford	...	Bobby Sexton
Fred Ewanuick	...	Colin MacGonagle
Colm Feore	...	Michael Pontifikator
Amélie Grenier	...	Pat Tremblay
Ali Hassan	...	Kumar
Yves Jacques	...	Pierre-Émile Dagnais
Rita Lafontaine	...	Rhéuna Tremblay - grande-mère
Diane Lavallée	...	Ghislaine Tremblay

Storyline

A contemporary comedy about five Anglo-Canadians - actually four Anglos and a New Yorker - who find themselves in a two-week total immersion French program in a remote town in Northern Quebec. The place is perfect for total immersion, since according to the most recent census the population is 97% Quebecois "pure laine," unilingually French, and fervently nationalist. No one is quite sure who or what the remaining 3% is.

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Plot Keywords:

quebec | strip club | canadian stereotype | female nudity | stripper | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

French English

Release Date:

7 October 2011 (Canada)

Also Known As:

French Immersion: C'est la faute à Trudeau

Box Office

Budget:

CAD 6,300,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Park Ex Pictures

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Colm Feore and Jacob Tierney co-star in this, when their last collaboration was when Feore acted in Tierney's directorial film The Trotsky

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Goofs

The French immersion course depicted in the film is a two-week course for absolute beginners, but the red-covered textbook used in the classroom is Level 2 of Moi, Je Parle Français, not Level 1. The Level 1 edition of the series has an orange cover and would take more than the allotted two weeks to complete.

User Reviews

Neither the best Canadian movie, nor the worst.

Contrary to the other user views French Immersion is definitely NOT the best or worst. Some of my nominees for best would be Good Cop Bon Cop and Starbuck.

What French Immersion does well is introduce and maintain a level of quaint quirkiness throughout the movie. Some of the jokes or least cracks involving the dislike between the English speaking population and the French is tongue in cheek but funny. But other things were handled rather amateurishly, so there was a lot of room for improvement, just as there was scope for development.

The idea of having a group of non french speakers go to a town in Quebec to learn French was good but there was hardly any french spoken when the group was left to its own devices. Most of the English group had their own agendas which were not properly developed. Even the plot about the gay politician learning french so he could use it to strengthen his candidacy for national leadership was stale and didn't really amount to much. The only interesting thing was the burgeoning romance between Julie and Colin.

All this amounts to a silly, somewhat watchable fare. As long as you accept that it's neither the best nor the worst Canadian film you'll be fine.