CALGARY HERALD
Friday, February 11, 1994

ENTERTAINMENT

LEON THE PIG FARMER FINDS HIS DREAM
Fred Haeseker

One-joke movie more like a Monty Python sketch

Rating *** out of 5

Leon the Pig Farmer is a one-joke movie, but it's amazing how far and deep that single joke is made to stretch.

It tells the story of a 30-ish London real-estate agent who sticks faithfully to his Jewish faith and traditions, but is nevertheless a disappointment to his immense extended family.

Leon Geller (Mark Frankel) has not yet fathered any children or even married. His ethics force him to quit his job; Lisa (Gina Bellman), the nice Jewish girl with whom it's hoped he'll settle down, yearns for someone more exciting and adventurous.

Leon is clearly ripe for an existential crisis, and it happens. As he marks time making deliveries for the kosher catering service run by his mother (Janet Suzman), he accidentally makes a startling discovery. He finds out that - because of a low-sperm count - his father (David De Keyser) took part in an artificial-insemination program.

When Leon visits the AI clinic to check out his own sperm count, he is told apologetically that there was a mix-up in the test tubes 30 years ago.

His biological father, it turns out, is not Sidney the net-curtain king of St. John's Wood but Brian Chadwick, a pig farmer of Lower Dinthorpe, Yorkshire.

Leon drives off to the North Country to explore the goyish part of his heritage and finds the Chadwicks more than hospitable.

As Leon struggles to overcome generations of negative feelings about swine, Brian (Brian Glover) explores the subtleties of Yiddish (filtered through a Yorkshire accent, "schmuck" comes out "schmook") while his wife Yvonne (Connie Booth of Fawlty Towers) works hard at cooking the perfect chicken soup.

First-time producer-directors Gary Sinyor and Vadim Jean show little visual sophistication, but draw fine comic performances from a talented ensemble cast.

Mark Frankel is a charming straight man and Maryam D'Abo is wonderfully flaky as a free-spirited gentile stained-glass artist who - unlike Lisa - finds Leon exciting simply because he's Jewish. (It's the intensity, she explains.)

By staying in the casual key of the shaggy dog story-the film plays an expanded Monty Python sketch cooked up in a kosher-Leon the Pig Farmer is able to touch lightly (but sharply) on a number of complex issues, like the essence of being Jewish, which Leon believes lies in guilt.

Another complex matter is the possibility of producing kosher pork by means of artificial insemination - something that gives Brian the horrors because it involves cross-breeding. But that's another story.