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    ‘French Girl’ Review: Cuckold au Vin

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    In this romantic comedy featuring Zach Braff and Vanessa Hudgens, a New York man heads to Quebec City with his French Canadian girlfriend. Shenanigans ensue.“French Girl” is a love triangle farce that’s mostly set in Quebec City but takes place on Planet Rom-com where bipedal characters act out in ways that rarely resemble human behavior.In New York, a middle school teacher named Gordon (Zach Braff) yearns to measure up to his girlfriend, Sophie (Evelyne Brochu), a French Canadian chef and the kind of aspirational Francophile ingénue who, within the film’s first minutes, roams a farmers market in a print dress, blonde curls tumbling down to her straw basket of fresh produce. (What, no baguette?)Enter Sophie’s ex, Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens), a name-dropping celebrity restaurateur who engineers a ploy that brings all three past and present lovers up to Canada for a stomach-churning visit with Sophie’s noisy, knife-wielding, octagon-brawling family. Gordon is immediately attacked by a swan; worse, Ruby renders him to blubber as skillfully as if he were a roasted poulet.The filmmakers James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright push their script dangerously close to parody. But there are at least a dozen good zingers in here, particularly a three-part punchline from Alex Woods as a snobbish food critic that kicks off with, “Have you ever seen an emaciated dolphin?” The trouble is, none of the performances are on the same wavelength: Hudgens is an outrageously hilarious monster; Brochu, an earnest heroine; and the increasingly unhinged Braff tries too hard to be empathetic. The more he wants us to sympathize with his hapless character, the more unforgivable Gordon’s actions feel. By the climax, Gordon should be in relationship and criminal jail. And no amount of je suis désolés will make the ending taste sweeter than a poisoned mint at the end of a strange meal.French GirlRated R for language and steamy sexual references. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Vanessa Hudgens Reveals Her Pregnancy on Oscars Red Carpet

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      The actress Vanessa Hudgens, one of the hosts of ABC’s Oscars pre-show, included a subtle pregnancy announcement in her coverage of the red carpet on Sunday evening.“I clearly have a lot to be excited for,” she said at the beginning of the broadcast, positioning her hands on her stomach.Ms. Hudgens, 35, wore a fitted black Vera Wang gown with long sleeves and a turtleneck. She did not explicitly discuss her pregnancy during the broadcast, instead keeping her attention on the stars she was interviewing.A representative for Ms. Hudgens did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.This is the third consecutive year that Ms. Hudgens, who became a household name with her role in “High School Musical” in 2006, has hosted “The Oscars Red Carpet Show” on ABC.Ms. Hudgens married Cole Tucker, a baseball player, in Mexico in December. (For that occasion, she also wore a streamlined Vera Wang gown.) This will be the couple’s first child.During the broadcast, Ms. Hudgens traded off interviews with her co-host, Julianne Hough, and acknowledged that the ceremony was taking place on Indigenous land. Her interview subjects included Emma Stone, Simu Liu, Ariana Grande and America Ferrera.When her coverage shift concluded, she held a microphone in one bejeweled hand and beamed into the camera. “That was a lot of fun,” she said. More

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      How Well Do You Know Your Holiday Movies?

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      Between a murderous Santa wielding a sledgehammer and an elf throwing a rave in a corporate mailroom, Christmas movies seem to get more outlandish every year. How well do you know your festive films?
      Image credits: Hallmark Channel (“A Royal Corgi Christmas”); Bettmann/Getty Images (Queen Elizabeth II); Michael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock (the Bidens); Pool photo by Jonathan Buckmaster (Muick and Sandy mourning the Queen’s death); Netflix (“The Princess Switch”); Universal Pictures (“Violent Night”); Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (“Christmas in Montana”); Hulu (“Happiest Season”); Netflix (“Falling for Christmas”); Paramount Pictures (“Mean Girls”); Disney (“The Parent Trap”); Paramount Pictures (“Once Upon a Christmas”); Disney (“Noelle”); Hallmark Channel (“Hanukkah on Rye”); Universal Pictures (“Last Christmas”).
      Produced by Tala Safie and Josephine Sedgwick. More

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      ‘The Princess Switch 3’ Review: Meow, It’s Fiona’s Turn

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      A golden star on loan from the Vatican to crown the holiday tree in tiny Montenaro has been stolen. What’s a royal family to do?One of the most satisfying moments of “The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star” is seeing the scheming villain Fiona, in sequined beanie and stiletto sandals, swabbing the floors of the local convent and orphanage, working off the hefty community service sentence she earned last year in the previous edition of this seasonal Netflix movie series directed by Mike Rohl.The only scene to top it is when Fiona (Vanessa Hudgens) tries to walk a dog, and ends up being hauled along a snow-dusted sidewalk like a sled by the very Great Dane at the end of the leash. But it turns out that even this batty outsider has something to contribute when her cousin Queen Margaret (also Vanessa Hudgens) needs her help — and can commute her community service.Margaret and Fiona’s look-alike cousin from America, Stacy (also played by you-know-who), is on hand with Prince Edward (Sam Palladio), her handsome but clueless husband, for the much-anticipated Christmas pageant. One thing is certain: The celebration will be dripping with enough lights to run up a staggering electric bill. What they don’t suspect is that an intrigue of Continental proportions is going to shake up the impeccable snow globe that is Montenaro.That intrigue would involve the Star of Peace, a precious decorative relic from the Vatican (who knew there was a lending library there?), which has barely arrived when it mysteriously disappears. What the royal retinue needs is an expert on the criminal mind: in a word, Fiona.When the flamboyant answer to their prayers sashays into the room, she locks eyes with Stacy’s husband and greets him with a purring “Hello, royal six-pack.” That’s how she talks. And she meows, and says “Zzzzzzzttttt!”Anyone who has seen one of these movies can just take over for the characters and guess their lines as easily as the three cousins can swap clothes and accents to impersonate one another.Interchangeable though the cousins may be, Fiona grabs the spotlight this year. Through her connections she produces an ex, Peter Maxwell (Remy Hii), a former Interpol officer with the sophisticated suite of crook-catching tools needed to retrieve the Star. But, paving the way for more sequels that are less superficial, she is drawn as the one character who actually grows, who steps out of her one-dimensional bad-girl type to reveal her vulnerability. Sharing some long-buried memories, she helps us understand why she is cold and distant when she puts down her peppermint martini and feather boa.The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the StarRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More