Let’s be clear from the start: Chef, the new Jon Favreau film – his calling card was once indie hit Swingers, he’s now better known as the eminence grise behind the Iron Man franchise – is a summer film, which is to say it is filmmaking by committee. It’s built beneath an overarching narrational “journey”, with the big name cast that can appeal to multiple demographics; a bit weaker on virtuoso acting and subtle understatement. It is also conjoined, a bit artificially, to a contemporary edge – as The Internship last summer was a (failed) paean to Google, Chef genuflects at the temple of social media and the connected generation via Twitter. Unsurprisingly, the film reveals narrational non-sequiturs and story-telling dead ends ignored once they’ve served their purpose. But it is more than half-way good; it could be a much better film true, but given the context I suppose one shouldn’t ask for everything.
Carl Casper (Favreau – who also writes, directs and produces: the man believes in keeping himself busy, I guess) is a high-octane chef, thriving on the passion and the edge of creative cookery. That’s a shame, because restaurant owner and boss Riva (Dustin Hoffman) believes in playing safe with conservative fare that caters to the bottom line – bottoms on seats, that is.
Influential food blogger Ramsey Michel (an oleaginous Oliver Platt) eviscerates Casper and his bloated, boring fare via Twitter. (And here’s a question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody reports thus on Twitter, did it make a sound?) Casper, who can’t tell the difference between a retweet and a record player, responds robustly. Not so much flambé cooking as a flame war; a virtual crowd gathers, and are duly sated when Casper explodes at Michel (in person) and the ensuing meltdown goes viral.
So far, so bad. Things aren’t great on the home front either. “Amicably” divorced from Inez (Sofia Vergara), Casper’s passion for food is getting in the way of his relationship with 10-year-old son Percy (Emjay Anthony). Percy wants to spend more time with Dad and his job, but Casper thinks the kitchen is no place for a child. But then Casper loses his job. And if he isn’t careful, he might soon lose his son too…
Chef cooks up wholesome fare from predictable ingredients, food, fatherhood and friendship. Caspar’s heart belongs to the first, to the detriment of the second and holding him back from appreciating the third. Inez – wealthy through some ill-defined media career – intuits that Caspar’s energies might be better directed in an independent role, and tries to cajole him into buying a food truck. He baulks and prevaricates, but eventually is prodded into thinking about the prospect more closely. It might just be the redemption of his career, and of his parenting.
Chef is marinaded in rich Latin-American sensibilities. Aside from Vergara, Casper’s best mate is jovial and loyal line-cook Martin (Jon Leguizamo). The food truck is in Miami, Casper’s base is in California. Miami is the excuse for some lovely Salsa music and a sparkling one-scene cameo by Robert Downey Jr. It is also the preamble for a cross-country drive, as Casper, Martin and Percy traverse the South in the food truck. The Great American Highway is much more effective in repairing relationships than psychotherapy, I’d wager. As the three traverse southern USA in the truck, they find out a lot about themselves and each other, and the importance of keeping connected…
Oddly enough (or perhaps not), my son was talking to me about keeping in touch with people just before I went off to watch the preview screening the other day. How did people manage before mobile phones and skype and email? We just made plans and stuck to them, I replied. But what if plans had to be changed, if something important cropped up at the last minute? I think you’ll find that what counts as “important” differs vastly between then and now, I replied smugly. He didn’t get it, and said as much. You suppress spontaneity just like that? I shrugged. There was no point telling him about pay phones and pagers. His head would explode.
But after Chef, I did think again. It is at times clumsy, occasionally cliched. But it did get me thinking very seriously about the ways and means by which we keep in touch with one another. Social networking is the medium, not the message. Once we get than sorted out, everything else is gravy.
Chef (2014)
Written and Directed by Jon Favreau
Starring Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara, Emjay Anthony, Jon Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver Platt, Dustin Hoffman, Amy Sedaris and Robert Downey Jr.
115 mins, English and Spanish w. Hebrew subtitles.
