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movie review - Men With Brooms

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This movie is as Canadian as they get. It's about four curlers (curling is a Scottish game involving sliding stones over a strip of ice into some rings; as someone says during the movie, 'think shuffleboard') who are brought together to make a comeback attempt at winning the 'golden broom' (e.g. a fictitious Stanley Cup of curling). They're doing so at the behest of their former coach, a man who died of a heart-attack while retrieving the curling stones from the bottom of a lake where they'd been thrown at the end of the team's previous unsuccessful bid. The story gets more convoluted, but between the sex, alcoholic binges, slapstick comedy, slapstick sex, and odd bits of violence (must make a note to spend more time in northern Ontario) it all works out. Some of the Canadianisms include two unlikely swarms (er, flocks?) of beavers (yes, the 'type with teeth'), an American challenger to the title round, and the Tragically Hip. Probably best watched with a few drinks under one's belt.

Recommended.