Emjay Anthony and Jon Favreau in “Chef”
“CHEF” My rating: B (Opening wide on May 22)
115 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The title character of “Chef” works in a hugely lucrative but artistically stifling high-end L.A. restaurant. He has a meltdown and goes off looking to regain his muse of cooking.
Interestingly enough, “Chef “ was written, directed by, and stars Jon Favreau, who first burst onto the scene as an indie auteur (“Swingers,” “Made”) before finding mucho money and Tinseltown clout cranking out superhero movies for the Marvel folk (“Iron Man”).
“Chef” can be seen as Favreau’s return to down-home cooking/filmmaking. Despite its impressively deep cast, it’s a relatively simple, modestly budgeted affair, less a banquet than a delicate palate cleanser.
Nothing earthshaking happens here. No deep emotions are plumbed or existential dilemmas explored.
But if the film is superficial, it is often slyly funny, has a real handle on the restaurant biz and its denizens, genuinely likes its characters, and tries to look on the sunny side. In short, a pleasant couple of hours at the movies.
Carl Casper (Favreau) is top chef at one of Hollywood’s most in-demand eateries. But he’s hit a creative dead end. The joint’s owner (Dustin Hoffman) doesn’t want to tinker with success and consistently nixes Carl’s attempts at an edgier menu.
When a powerful food blogger (Oliver Platt) pans the place as old hat and unimaginative, Carl has a very public meltdown that is recorded by dozens of customers, making him an Internet sensation. But while being the raving chef raises Carl’s profile, it gets him fired and makes him unemployable.
He’s got no choice but to start over.
Emjay Anthony, John Leguizamo, Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara
Favreau’s screenplay provides Carl with an adorable son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), whom he has never spent enough time with, an ex-wife, Inez (Sofia Vergara, a great comic actress here handed a limited straight role), and a best bud and fellow cook Martin (John Leguizamo).
In the course of the film — and particularly on a trip to Inez’s hometown of Miami — Carl finds ways to reconnect with these people. And along the way he picks up a rattletrap food van, refurbishes it, and launches a new career making authentic Cuban sandwiches.
A father-son road trip back to L.A. provides plenty of bonding, lots of eager eaters along the way, and an illustration of the generally lax enforcement in our great nation of restaurant permit and child labor regulations.
Favreau and company get a lot of mileage out of the idea of the Internet as something that can make or break us. Carl loses his job when his on-the-job tantrum goes viral; he’s such a Luddite that he hasn’t a clue about how to operate his Twitter account.
Thankfully his precocious kid is an expert at navigating the world wide web, cannily using tweets to bolster Carl’s fledgling business and spread the word when their food truck is headed toward a particular city. At certain points, in fact, Favreau inserts animated blue tweetbirds over the live action to suggest how word of Carl’s new enterprise is spreading.
Throughout “Chef” is crammed with big-name actors in supporting roles. In addition to Hoffman there’s Scarlett Johansson as the restaurant hostess with whom Carl has been dallying, Bobby Cannavale as an eccentric kitchen underling, Amy Sedaris as a p.r. pro, and Robert Downey Jr. as Inez’s first husband, a Miami-based millionaire with a big mouth and a bigger ego.
Most of these roles could have been cast with far lesser talents, but it’s pretty obvious that Favreau was calling in some chips here. And it can’t hurt to have all those famous faces showing up in your movie’s trailer.
“Chef” isn’t in the same league with such sublime food-centric films as “Babbette’s Feast” and “Big Night,” but it’ll do for now. I suggest you plan a big meal afterward. You’ll need it.
| Robert W. Butler
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