All of the men in the small and picturesque northern Quebec town of St. Marie-La Mauderne are out of work as fishermen. They line up every week to receive their welfare checks. Gloom and doom hang like dark clouds over the community. When the mayor gets a job in another town and moves away, Germain (Raymond Bouchard) decides to lead a campaign to attract a plastics factory. To achieve this goal, they must first land a doctor from Quebec. Germain, his buddy Yvon (Pierre Collin) and Henri (Benoit Briere), the banker come up with a scheme that they feel will ensure everyone a delightful future. They send out an advertisement for the position to all of Quebec's doctors but only one responds — Doctor Christopher Lewis (David Boutin), who has his own reasons for checking out the offer.
Germain and his cohorts decide to deceive the newcomer to convince him to stay in their humble community. First of all, they discover that he is crazy about cricket, and so the men in St. Marie-La Mauderne learn the game overnight. They tap his phone to find out more about his favorite things. For example, the doctor is pleased when the local restaurant has a specialty beef stroganoff which just happens to be his favorite dish. On the first day of his practice, the citizens line up and come to him with a variety of ailments. Henri the banker is tickled pink with his contribution to the seduction of Dr. Lewis — each day the newcomer finds some money on his way home. The town's computer wiz is assigned to provide CDs of his favorite kind of music — fusion jazz. The women even wear open-toed shoes when they learn that he has a foot fetish.
This rambling and playful comedy is directed by Jean-Francois Pouliot from a screenplay by Ken Scott. More laughs come when Germain hosts the owner of the factory who visits the town to make sure there are the requisite number of workers. Since St. Marie-La Mauderne needs twice as many laborers as they have citizens, all involved have to do some heavy huffing and puffing to pull the wool over the eyes of the factory owner.
Those who have enjoyed community movies such as The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, Brassed Off, Citizens Band, Cookie's Fortune, State and Main and Local Hero will savor the small pleasures to be gotten from this light-hearted portrait of a dysfunctional town trying to get itself together and guarantee themselves a brighter future.
