July 15, 1994

Stephen Holden

LEON THE PIG FARMER

1993. Fox Lorber. $89.98 98 minutes. No rating.

Never quite comfortable with his position in high-powered London Jewish society, Leon Geller (Mark Frankel) looks for his real roots and discovers that through a mix-up during artificial insemination he is really the son of a pig farmer named Brian Chadwick of Lower Dinthorpe, Yorkshire. Brian, a gentle, open fellow, and his wife, Yvonne, ply Leon with chicken soup and try to think Jewish by reading “Portnoy’s Complaint” and “The Joy of Yiddish”. In this vein, Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor’s satire has it’s witty moments, but the joke is “far from uproarious because of the deadpan absurdist style in which it’s told.”