With Fir$In his first feature film, director Stéphane Moukarzel creates an uneven but amusing comedy that puts us in the Christmas spirit in its own unique way by introducing us to the unusual world of Christmas tree sales in New York.
• Also read: “Sapin$”: the adventures of a Quebec Christmas tree seller in New York
Rémi (Étienne Galloy) has always had the ability to get her feet wet. After a drunken Halloween party, the young man from La Tuque loses control of his employer's van and accidentally drives into a pet store.
To repay his boss, who demands $15,000 from him, Rémi reluctantly accepts a friend's (Rémi Goulet) offer to accompany him to New York for a few weeks to sell Christmas trees. But he is rejected at the American border and poor Rémi ends up alone in the Big Apple.
Without a work permit and with broken English, the 21-year-old Quebecer has to learn to sell trees on a street corner in the Bronx district with Laura, a young French environmental activist (Diane Rouxel).
Mixture of genres
To emphasize straight away: “Sapin$” is not a classic Christmas film. Since the story is set during the Christmas season, director Stéphane Moukarzel incorporated elements of the genre into his story, but also allowed himself to break things up by picking up codes from educational films, romantic comedies and even crime novels.
The first part of the film is particularly amusing, in which Rémi discovers the colorful fauna of the Bronx district and the dark side of selling Christmas trees in New York. However, the somewhat disjointed scenario eventually runs out of steam and dissipates into a somewhat far-fetched plot involving the mysterious disappearance of several fir trees.
The social problems raised in Sapin$ (overconsumption, waste, the phenomenon of gentrification, etc.) give the viewer something to think about, even if they are only discussed superficially.
Étienne Galloy (“Before We Explode”) is both funny and endearing in the skin of the naive and clumsy good guy and has found a role that perfectly suits the style of humor that made him famous. He forms an effective duo with actress Diane Rouxel, convincing in the role of a young environmental activist.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Sapin$, a film by Stéphane Moukarzel with Étienne Galloy, Diane Rouxel and Rémi Goulet.