(Chicago) – Food can be addictive; some people find comfort in eating in great quantity and others get obsessed in perfecting their craft in making food. Too much of anything can cause serious problems. However, food can be your salvation as well.
This movie is about the struggles of a headstrong master chef Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) as she deals with finding a balance to her personal life which is confined in the four walls of an upscale Greenwich Village restaurant in New York. Kate takes her profession seriously which makes her life stiff and unable to express her emotional state. One night, while busily orchestrating the kitchen, she receives a phone call that her only sister is killed in a car accident. From then on, she takes charge of her niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin); a task she is not accustomed in doing well. While Kate is out for a week off, Paula, the owner of the restaurant, has substituted her with a high-spirited and charming sous-chef Nicholas Palmer (Aaron Eckhart). This is a big threat to Kate professionally but Zoe finds some unexpected ease in Nick’s company which paves the way for Kate and Nick to like each other. When things get complicated in the restaurant and the owner is planning to replace Kate with Nick, she confronts Nick and he quits; not knowing that Nick had declined the offer. They part ways temporarily which saddens Zoe and Kate terribly. Later on, Kate admits to Nick that she cannot bear for him to leave. Nick decides to stay, Kate quits her job and they open their own restaurant.
There is nothing ground-breaking with the story-line of this movie. Actually, the story is pretty straight-forward and most of the scenes are predictable. What I like with the movie, though, is the characterization of all the actors. All of the characters’ lives revolve around food and their passion for food is evident. There are many scenes that focus on those beautiful plates of seared scallops with saffron sauce and lobster. The movie shows convincing scenes illustrating the impact of food to people’s emotion and action; when the shrink got distracted because of the saffron sauce while in a session with Kate, when Zoe opened up to Nick because of spaghetti that his grandma taught him; when Kate and Nick bonded over his cast-iron-baked pizza and almost kissed after having tiramisu. Also, culinary terms, like terrine, soufflé, truffles, duck confit, are thrown by the characters casually in many conversations in the movie. This love for food even over-shadowed the supposedly love-story between Kate and Nick.
Well, this is not a bad movie at all. If you love seeing and hearing things about food, you will definitely like this. Get a bottle of wine and enjoy the movie …
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