Directed by John Wells
First things first: there is nothing to learn about food (indeed cooking) in Burnt. Oh, there is a lot of it on display, but I will be damned if I can tell you what are on those plates, or imagine how they might taste. The characters mock-lovingly describe their cooking as “old-school,” and I wonder how much I have lagged behind the times. That’s so you know where I’m coming from.
What Adam Jones really wants to do is cook food that “makes people sick with longing,” or something to that effect (I was not taking notes). Sounds good to me; even chefs have a right to be philosophical. In any case, he has had time to think about it after shucking a million oysters in New Orleans as penance for something he did in Paris years back. And yes, he really did count those oysters, with a notebook to show for it, which is also cinematic shorthand for obsessiveness. There is no prize for guessing said notebook gets thrown away later on, along with a lot of other things.
Now he’s back, this time in London, which just happens to be where most of the people he had pissed off in gay Paree seem to have relocated. Whatever it was that transpired in Paris must have been really bad. And Adam Jones that good for these same people to take him back. I’m guessing it’s because he is played by Bradley Cooper. Uma Thurman, in a cameo as a restaurant critic, wonders about having slept with him despite being a lesbian — that’s how bad-ass Chef Ad–, excuse me, Bradley Cooper is. Together, they cow Tony Balerdi (Daniel Brühl) into giving Adam control of his father’s hotel’s restaurant. Now I’m not supposed to spoil the movie, but I’m disappointed, see: why couldn’t Adam have done so simply by being a goddamn fantastic chef and not because Tony is in love with him?
Anyway, once ensconced in the kitchen, Adam promptly channels Gordon Ramsay, throwing tantrums with requisite bone china. So much for making diners giddy with longing — he wants that third Michelin star. Makes me think poor Tony was better off with just two, after all. As for the rest of the characters, they are essentially clichés: The Friend with an Agenda (Omar Sy, otherwise underutilized), The Mirror (Matthew Rhys as a competitor), The Sage (Emma Thompson, playing shrink, but dressed as if the costume designer were trying to make up for having the rest of the cast in kitchen whites), and, of course, The Good Woman (a sympathetic Sienna Miller), whose love turns our hero around. See, I have a little notebook of my own. As for the food, well, it’s plainly a MacGuffin: it drives the logic of the plot but actually serves no other purpose than look properly good, as it should (Mario Batali is credited as one of the consulting chefs).
Do I sound like I hate this movie? To tell the truth, I rather enjoyed it. Then I sat down to write about what I saw and realized there was little to chew on, pardon the obvious pun. If that seems unfair, you ought to make soufflé sometime.
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