User:Michbgirl/sandbox

Year of the Carnivore is a 2009 Canadian romantic comedy film about a grocery store detective with a crush on a boy who rejects her because she has too little sexual experience.

Year of the Carnivore is Sook-Yin Lee's feature directorial debut and it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival as a Canada First selection.

Cast

 * Cristin Milioti as Sammy Smalls
 * Mark Rendall as Eugene
 * Will Sasso as Dirk
 * Ali Liebert as Sylvia
 * Sheila McCarthy as Mrs. Smalls
 * Kevin McDonald as Mr. Smalls
 * Patrick Gilmore as Todd
 * Luke Camilleri as Jie

Plot
Cristin Milioti stars as Sammy Smalls, a precocious 21-year old tomboy. She works as a grocery store detective at Big Apple Food Town where she tracks down shoplifters and transfers them to her aggressive boss Dirk who then beats up the shoplifters as punishment. Sammy is apprehensive about her role in this plot but is unwilling to quit her job and return to living with her over-bearing parents. Sammy meets and becomes infatuated with Eugene Zaslavsky, an equally quirky musician who performs outside her grocery store. The two develop a friendship that culminates into a disastrous one-night stand. Eugene, unimpressed by Sammy’s immaturity and sexual inexperience, suggests they maintain an open relationship. Sammy concocts a plan to gain sexual experience to impress Eugene which leads her to many titillating and humorous adventures.

Reception
Upon its release in Canada, Year of the Carnivore has received mostly positive yet polarized reviews.

Critics
In his review for The Globe and Mail, Rick Groen wrote that “[Year of the Carnivore is] as sketchy as a failed sitcom, yet with a plot that boasts more wayward tangents than a geometry text. ” Peter Howell of Toronto Star praised Cristin Milioti in his review: “Milioti is great as Sammy, a real find who brings humor and empathy to a character that might normally summon thoughts of a restraining order. ” Jam! Movies rated Year of the Carnivore three out of five stars and Jim Slotek wrote that “there’s a sweetness to The Year of the Carnivore that survives its flaws. It is not successful as a comedy in the sense of there being a lot of laughs. But it is an interesting and different character portrait.”