Perhaps it was the fact that I had the entire theater to myself, but Chef was one of the best movies I had watched in a movie theater. And it is definitely, what I like to call, a “theater movie.”
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You know your eyes and ears are both in for a treat in the
very opening scene: Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is chopping away at a lot of
vegetables, fruits, and meats. And there are plenty of crisp sounds of slicing contrasted with dull thuds of the knife hitting the cutting board. Everything
is getting sliced in the most even shapes at such quick speeds too. It’s just
refreshing seeing all this. And this is just one of the many scenes in Chef (2013) where you can just feel the passion
and love come out the screen.
The story is straightforward. Carl is getting ready for the
“big night” when a prominent food critic is paying a visit to the restaurant he
works at and tries to change the menu to add in some more of his creative
juices. The restaurant owner is blinded by profits and forces Carl to stick
with the safe, but unoriginal menu. Meanwhile, Carl needs to deal with a
divorced marriage and trying to be a father to his son, Percy (Emjay Anthony). Carl
always blames his busy work life on not spending time with Percy. On top of all
this, the critic expectedly leaves a terrible review that angers Carl and
eventually leads to his quitting the restaurant. His family and co-workers suggest
that he should really cook what he wants to cook – perhaps by starting his own
food truck.
And so he does. Along with his son, he goes around selling
sandwiches. As the food truck business starts to boom, ironically, he begins to
seem more and more as a genuine father to his son.
The movie tries to touch on a lot of themes – family,
passion, love, and loyalty. While most of these themes are (expectedly) rushed
near the end, passion – specifically the passion Carl shows for his food – is
definitely present well throughout the movie. All the accentuated chopping, sizzling, frying,
wrapping sounds and copious amounts of screentime just devoted to just seeing
food being made (even if it’s a simple grilled cheese sandwich) make you
really feel the passion that this chef is channeling into his food.
Most movies seem to have trouble incorporating more modern
aspects of society. Most of the time, they over-explain and then over-highlight
these aspects ruining the effect of introducing them in the first place.
Unfortunately, Chef is no exception
to this. As an old father who only knows and loves to cook is taught how to
“tweet” by his son, the mention of Twitter is, at first, endearing. But, the
tweets and other modern technology references (ranging from “selfies” to Vines)
continue and start to consume Percy’s identity. At some point, the references
start to sound forced as if they were ill-planned product placements.
Jon Favreau is more known for his directing work with the
Ironman series, and so it comes to no surprise that Robert Downey Jr. and
Scarlett Johansson play minor roles. And
yet they’re no simple cameos, they’re used very effectively in roles that you
think they would play. Having seen this, I look forward to more Favreau films that aren’t
necessarily action packed superhero movies.
Chef can sometimes be like that dad who tries to be cool. Favreau, who
ironically plays the Chef, may have
sprinkled a bit too much of Internet-jargon and references, but still the
underlying theme of passion comes out beautifully through generous scenes
devoted to the food itself and the growing relationship between father and son.
