Oftentimes writers are given the advice to “write what you know.” Filmmaker Boris Mojsovski from Sarajevo and co-writer/actress Cynthia Ashperger from Croatia/Canada (her stage musical is what this movie is based on) did just that with their latest independent film, Foreign Tongue. The film starts out as a typical rom-com following Kathy (Kimberly-Sue Murray) as she looks for love, until she bumps her head at a speed dating event, and then a whole new world opens up. The doctor at the hospital explains that she now has the ultra-rare Foreign Accent Syndrome, which takes the form of a Bosnian accent in her case.
The beginning of the movie plays it for laughs, with Kathy’s date at a bar laughing hysterically in her face at her new way of speaking. The second and third acts get more serious (with jokes sandwiched in throughout for good measure), focusing on the plight of immigrants in America.
Kathy is a quirky main character from the get-go. She’s a Canadian woman who loves historical psychologist Carl Jung (who humorously pops up during the film to comment on things, played by Greg Bryk), and we even see her masturbating in the shower while picturing the foreign delivery man who just came by.
“… Kathy now has the ultra-rare Foreign Accent Syndrome…”
She’s certainly a lonely woman, even though she’s tough on the men at the speed dating event where everyone wears costumes. That is until she meets David, played by Steve Byers, a wealthy man who wants to help study the struggles of immigrants through documentary film. David thinks that Kathy is one of those immigrants when they meet, so she has to keep up the ruse in typical rom-com fashion, even when he takes her to a Bosnian restaurant/bar and later when Kathy goes through the crisis of starting to lose her accent.
The characters in the movie raise serious questions such as: why should doctors, dentists, engineers and other professionals from non-Western countries have to go back to school to relearn their trades? Why are these professionals forced into such low-level jobs here? Why are people who have an accent treated differently and passed over for jobs that they’re qualified for in the United States? A run-of-the-mill romantic comedy would go nowhere near these types of questions.
Kimberly-Sue Murray kills it as Kathy. She’s relatable, funny, and does such a great job with the accent so as to help suspend the disbelief of the insane storyline. The cast of immigrants, including Cas Anvar, Lara Arabian, and the aforementioned Cynthia Ashperger as Visnja, playing an actress who has talent for days but still can’t land acting gigs, are extremely effective at communicating presumably their (or their family’s) plights through their acting in the movie.
The message of Foreign Tongue elevates it above the genre because it makes you think and step inside another group’s shoes. The comedy aspects may or may not land with some people, but hopefully the idea of equality is something that we can all get behind.
"…The message of equality elevates it above the genre"
