Men With Brooms

Don’t let the title of this film fool you. You may think it’s about curling, but its tagline is closer to the truth: There’s more than one way to sweep a girl off her feet. Men with Brooms marks the directorial debut of actor and writer Paul Gross. It is, if nothing else, a love story. But there is more. Nothing’s been quite the same in the small town of Long Bay, Ontario since Chris Cutter (Paul Gross) cut town ten years ago. When the curling star left, he didn’t just throw away his team’s chance to win the Golden Broom – the “Stanley Cup” of the curling world – he inexplicably hurled their curling stones into the waters of local Trout Lake. And he also threw away a chance at love, leaving his beautiful fiancée Julie Foley (Michelle Nolden) standing at the altar. While Julie survived Cutter’s rapid retreat (she’s become a top-flight astronaut), he sunk the sporting dreams of his three teammates and left them behind to fare for themselves. And they haven’t fared too well: Neil Bucyk (James Allodi) is a dissatisfied mortician in a marriage as cold as his customers; James Lennox (Peter Outerbridge) courts both a Rent-A-Date (Polly Shannon) and a heap of trouble, this time in the form of a thug who’s tracking him down in search of payback; and, Eddie Strombeck (Jed Rees), a man whose single digit sperm count is keeping he and his wife from ultimate domestic bliss. And last but not least, is Julie’s sister Amy Foley (Molly Parker), a single mom who battles alcohol alongside regrets that she never spoke up to claim Cutter for herself. It’s been ten long years with no answers and even less future for Cutter’s old friends, but things are about to change for Cutter’s back in town… Cutter returns to his roots for the funeral of Coach Foley (Amy and Julie’s father), his old friend and mentor who died while trying to raise the curling rocks from the bottom of Trout Lake. If guilt weren’t enough to make him stay, his plans change when he hears the codicil to Coach Foley’s will and discovers that his former coach wants his ashes placed in the curling team’s Copernicus stone. He wants Cutter to put the old team together and, moreover, he wants them to place his stone — now his urn — on the “button” (the curling ring bulls eye) to finally win the prestigious Golden Broom. Realizing his motley (and out of shape) crew will be hard-pressed to win without a coach, Cutter swallows his pride and calls upon a retired curling champion – his estranged father Gordon Cutter (Leslie Nielsen). Thus, these four men with brooms, along with their eccentric new coach, set off on a comedic journey which takes them from frozen lakes to huge arenas, searching for perfect stones, lost loves and second chances.