GIRL FROM PARIS, THE

Caution: viewing THE GIRL FROM PARIS may be hazardous to your future career and personal plans, as you will be enticed, like leading-lady Sandrine, to chuck it all for the countryside. Our likeable heroine, about to turn 30, is discontented with her quotidian routine as a computer instructor in Paris. This thoroughly-modern woman feels a sincere pull to the farming life, and joins in an government-sponsored agricultural program that lands Sandrine in the Rh?ne Alpes, a region of green- covered mountains, sheep meadows, scattered towns and isolated farms that have provided some of Europe's purest breads, milk, meat and cheeses for ages. Farm folk here are overwhelmingly male, conservative, grizzled, facing retirement, and understandably skeptical about young entrepreneurs with MBAs, who have never personally slaughtered a sow, pretending to continue their endangered way of life. Nonetheless, Sandrine purchases a spread long-managed by Adrien, an irascible widower who lingers on the property, balefully waiting for the newcomer to fail. But the old man gradually learns to admire her spunk and fresh attitude. Still, winter is coming, Sandrine's first in these mountains. And if la Parisienne is to persevere in the time-honored vocation, Adrien must be certain she learns some very harsh lessons. If you've already done your Year in Provence, THE GIRL FROM PARIS offers four lovely seasons in the Rh?ne Alpes. Down with margarine! (In French with English subtitles)