Later On

If you think about a romantic comedy built around, say, curling, you can pretty much scope it out—lots of kids if made by Disney, more about adults if made by Miramax, say. It wouldn’t have much complexity—say, a challenge on the sports front, and two romantic struggles, the lead pair and the sidekick pair. If it’s a pilot of a series, it will have more, of course—something mildly serious (job crisis) to provide an on-going excuse for drama as needed, and character’s problems will not quite be neatly resolved so that they can fray again later in the series if needed. And if Leslie Nielsen is in it, you know just how goofy it will be, and what a dunderhead he will be.

But whatever you dream up, you won’t come close to the excellent  movie Men With Brooms. The title sounds Mel Brooks, but it’s not that sort of outrageous, over-the-top comedy. Indeed, it’s a fairly serious and straightforward comedy about curling (which is treated with significant knowledge and respect, not as a source of humor) with a lot about daily life and characters who have the sorts of flaws that real people do. It may help that the same guy co-wrote, directed, and stars in the move, playing the lead male role. Leslie Nielsen plays a role as an admirable character and plays it well. And for you Molly Parker fans, she’s in the movie, too.

In fact, as you watch it, start counting all the things that would never appear if this movie had been made in the US. Based on this movie alone, I would have to conclude that the popular culture of Canada is far more mature and far more multi-layered and intriguing (and more comfortable with complexity) than that of the US, which seems to take a naïve and simplistic view of life, ignoring any aspects of reality unsuited to a Disney family movie.

And I didn’t know beavers made those sounds.