{"id":29488,"date":"2014-06-01T00:47:55","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T07:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=29488"},"modified":"2014-06-01T23:49:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T06:49:43","slug":"chef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=29488","title":{"rendered":"Chef"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chef<\/a>
Chef – Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) with son Percy (Emjay Anthony)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s be clear from the start: Chef<\/em>, the new Jon Favreau film \u2013 his calling card was once indie hit Swingers<\/em>, he\u2019s now better known as the eminence grise behind the Iron Man franchise \u2013 is a summer film, which is to say it is filmmaking by committee. It\u2019s built beneath an overarching narrational \u201cjourney\u201d, 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 \u2013 as The Internship last summer was a (failed) paean to Google, Chef<\/em> 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\u2019ve 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\u2019t ask for everything.<\/p>\n

Carl Casper (Favreau \u2013 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\u2019s a shame, because restaurant owner and boss Riva (Dustin Hoffman) believes in playing safe with conservative fare that caters to the bottom line \u2013 bottoms on seats, that is.<\/p>\n

Influential food blogger Ramsey Michel (an oleaginous Oliver Platt) eviscerates Casper and his bloated, boring fare via Twitter. (And here\u2019s a question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody reports thus on Twitter, did it make a sound?) Casper, who can\u2019t tell the difference between a retweet and a record player, responds robustly. Not so much flamb\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

\"Chef<\/a>
Chef – Inez (Sofia Vergara) and Percy (Emjay Anthony)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So far, so bad. Things aren\u2019t great on the home front either. \u201cAmicably\u201d divorced from Inez (Sofia Vergara), Casper\u2019s 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\u2019t careful, he might soon lose his son too\u2026<\/p>\n

Chef cooks up wholesome fare from predictable ingredients, food, fatherhood and friendship. Caspar\u2019s heart belongs to the first, to the detriment of the second and holding him back from appreciating the third. Inez \u2013 wealthy through some ill-defined media career \u2013 intuits that Caspar\u2019s 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,\u00a0 and of his parenting.<\/p>\n

Chef is marinaded in rich Latin-American sensibilities. Aside from Vergara, Casper\u2019s best mate is jovial\u00a0 and loyal line-cook Martin (Jon Leguizamo). The food truck is in Miami, Casper\u2019s 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\u2019d 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\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2019ll find that what counts as \u201cimportant\u201d differs vastly between then and now, I replied smugly. He didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Chef (2014)
\nWritten and Directed by Jon Favreau
\nStarring Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara, Emjay Anthony, Jon Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Scarlett Johansson, Oliver Platt, Dustin Hoffman, Amy Sedaris and Robert Downey Jr.
\n115 mins, English and Spanish w. Hebrew subtitles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be clear from the start: Chef, the new Jon Favreau film \u2013 his calling card was once indie hit Swingers, he\u2019s now better known as the eminence grise behind the Iron Man franchise \u2013 is a summer film, which is to say it is filmmaking by committee. It\u2019s built beneath an overarching narrational \u201cjourney\u201d, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}