Leon the Pig Farmer
Produced and Directed by Gary Sinyor and Vadim Jean
Written by Gary Sinyor and Michael Normand
Featuring Mark Frankel, Brian Glover, Maryam D'Abo and Connie Booth
Reviewed by L. Pradhan
Leon the Pig Farmer is the first Jewish comedy feature film produced in Britain. Co-producers and co-directors Gary Sinyor and Vadim Jean were able to raise less than $200,000 for its creation, but the results are clever and successful.
Leon (Mark Frankel) is a middle-class Jewish boy who has high principles and is continuously guilt ridden. He leaves his job as a real estate agent because he finds it too immoral — much to the displeasure of his parents. They give him the choice of working for his father's net curtain business or his mother's kosher catering firm.
Leon's girlfriend Lisa (Gina Bellman) finds him boring and prefers to go parachuting or hold all night Buddhist chanting parties. His new non-Jewish girlfriend, Madeleine (Marayam D'Abo) likes him because he is Jewish and is the perfect model for the stained glass window of the crucifixion she is creating for the Catholic Church. Both Lisa and Madeleine have an intense hatred for net curtain salesmen.
As if this were not enough of a dilemma for Leon, he finds out by accident that Sidney Geller (David De Keyser) is not his father at all; his roots are to be found on a pig farm in Yorkshire owned by the Chadwicks. Brian (Brian Glover) and Judith (Connie Booth) Chadwick welcome him warmly into their family, until he makes the mistake of creating a mutant pig by artificially inseminating the mother with the sperm of a sheep. Only one question remains: is it kosher?
This is a very funny movie with an excellent script. The unremitting sense of guilt felt by Leon is reflected brilliantly when members of the public approach him randomly to comment on his predicament.