Guess who’s swooning over ‘One Week’?

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With all the hubbub over ‘Watchmen’s’ tumultuous opening this weekend, you probably didn’t realize that Joshua Jackson -- who recently resurfaced on TV’s ‘Fringe’ -- is starring in a new film too. Called ‘One Week,’ it’s about a cross-Canadian motorcycle odyssey that Jackson’s character takes in his search for the meaning of life.

If you live in the States, there’s a good reason why you haven’t heard of the film -- it opens today in Canada, but only in Canada, since this valentine to the wide-open expanses of the Great White North was deemed too provincial for any U.S. distributors.

But the film has a great marketing gimmick, as reported here, that you can bet will be copied by some cagey U.S. distributor some day soon. The film’s full-page newspaper ads are headlined: ‘All Canada Is Talking About ‘One Week.’ ‘ There’s a small picture of Jackson in his motorcycle gear off in the corner, but most of the page is given over to big, bold blurb-like exhortations that include: ‘This Is a Fabulous Movie!’ and ‘FANTASTIC!’ as well as ‘Gord Downie! This Film Seems So Truly Canadian, I’m So Excited for It!’ (I had to include that last one, since it’s s-o-o-o-o-o Canadian: Gord Downie, who has a bit part in the film as a biker, being the lead singer of the Canadian band the Tragically Hip.)

The gimmick? All the ‘critics’ who supplied the blurbs are fans who left comments on YouTube after they watched the film’s trailer. Judging from the lukewarm reviews on IMDB (one viewer sniffed: ‘ ‘Speed 3’ with Pauly Shore would’ve been more engrossing than this’), I’m guessing that the film’s distributor didn’t have a host of raves from real critics to pick from, so it decided to go the populist route. There is a small asterisk at the top of the ad that leads you a disclaimer at the bottom of the page, alerting the reader that the quotes are all from YouTube.

With newspapers laying off critics or simply going out of business virtually every week, this seems like an idea whose time has come, especially for a company like Lionsgate, which has a scrum of films (‘Crank: High Voltage,’ ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’ and ‘Saw VI’) that it would probably prefer to keep away from professional critics anyway. (Tip of the hat to Vulture for finding this first.)

Here’s the trailer if you want to see Canada at its best: