Seducing Doctor Lewis
| La grande séduction | |
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Movie poster
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| Directed by | Jean-François Pouliot |
| Produced by |
Roger Frappier Luc Vandal |
| Written by | Ken Scott |
| Starring |
Raymond Bouchard David Boutin Benoit Brière Lucie Laurier |
| Music by | Francois-Pierre Lue Maxime Barzel Paul-Étienne Côté |
| Cinematography | Douglas Koch |
| Edited by | Dominique Fortin |
| Distributed by |
Alliance Atlantis (Canada) Dogwoof Pictures (UK) Wellspring Media (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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108 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | French |
| Box office | $12,587,032 |
Seducing Doctor Lewis (French: La grande séduction) is a 2003 Quebec comedy film and the first film directed by Jean-François Pouliot. The script was written by Ken Scott. It won the Audience Award at 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Starring in the movie are Raymond Bouchard, Benoit Brière, David Boutin and Lucie Laurier.
The small fishing village Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne on the north coast of Quebec is in decline. Every resident collects welfare. To lure a company into building a plastic container factory nearby, they need to double their population of 120, have a resident doctor, and give a $50,000 bribe for the company owner.
Montreal plastic surgeon Dr. Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) gets pulled over for speeding by an officer, Réal Fournier (Jean-Pierre Gonthier), the former mayor of Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne who moved to the city because he, like most of the residents of Ste-Marie, couldn't get a job there. Réal will not arrest him for drug possession - Dr. Lewis is carrying a packet of cocaine - if Dr. Lewis will visit Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne for one month. In a deleted scene, Dr. Lewis sells cocaine to his patients.
Germain Lesage (Raymond Bouchard), a welfare recipient himself and the new mayor, hatches a plan. The entire village will convince Dr. Lewis to stay. They tap his phone, and pretend to share his likes: cricket, fusion jazz, and all the same foods. Henri Giroux (Benoît Brière), the local banker whose sole job is to cash the townfolks' welfare cheques, leaves small amounts of money for Dr. Lewis to find as small measures to increase Dr. Lewis' happiness about being in town, and attempts to secure a loan through his bank for the bribe. Dr. Lewis likes the beautiful post office worker Ève Beauchemin (Lucie Laurier), but Ève knows he has a girlfriend, Brigitte, in Montreal.
The ruse works, but they cannot secure a loan. Henri fronts the money from his personal savings, after a bank executive tells him that he has a job only as a favour to his father, and that his position could easily be replaced by an ATM. When the plastics company owner arrives, everyone continues their elaborate trick, and convinces him to build the a factory there. The owner is ready to sign, but insists that they must have a doctor.
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