French Canadian director Laurent Firode's first English-language film is a crude romantic comedy of mistaken identity involving an about-to-be-married woman troubled by carnal fantasies and the unrepentant womanizer she mistakes for a catholic priest. Irish carpenter Nick Francis (Kenny Doughty) is working on renovations at Montreal's St. Andrew's Cathedral. Vanessa Sinclair (Rachael Leigh Cook), who's getting married in three days, is disgusted with the erotic fantasies she has about every man except her fiancé, devoutly catholic Andre Reed (Paul Hopkins). On a desperate whim, Vanessa — who isn't even Catholic — steps into St. Andrew's to confess just as Nick is working inside one of the confessional booths. His efforts to let her know he's not a priest stop as soon as she blurts out that she's troubled by lustful urges — he's lucked into a golden opportunity for a hot one night stand with a beautiful woman. Except for the fact that she thinks he's a priest, and all his efforts to introduce a lustful subtext to their subsequent conversations simply convinces her that he's the most amazing man of the cloth she's ever met: he understands human frailty, has modern attitudes, in non-judgmental and is going to so much trouble to help her deal with her problem. Soon everyone thinks he's Father Nick, including Vanessa's mother, Andre, the real priest scheduled to perform the wedding ceremony and all Vanessa's bridesmaids. The complications that ensue as Nick falls in love with Vanessa and, as Father Nick, tries to sabotage her wedding, are indeed complicated and the film could be Exhibit A in any argument contending that romantic comedies encourage behavior that would get spurned swains arrested as stalkers in real life. If it were at all funny, that might be forgiven. But the scene in which "Father Nick," who's told Andre he must call off the wedding because of something Vanessa confided to him in the confessional, then use charades to explain that she wants to become a nun without technically violating the sanctity of their conversation, is simply excruciating, and is, unfortunately, typical of the film's notion of humor. --Maitland McDonagh
