BURNT
DIRECTOR: John Wells
CAST: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Uma Thurman, Emma Thompson, Daniel Bruhl
CLASSIFICATION: 13 L
RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
BRADLEY Cooper turns in a compelling, slow-burn performance as an arrogant chef aiming for his third Michelin star in Burnt. He creates a character who is just a little bit repellent because of his behaviour, but who is tolerated for his skills.
His Adam Jones character is obsessive, an addict and full of himself, but his saving grace is that he can cook like no one else. So, as much as people might hate his behaviour, they want what he can produce. His behaviour induces people to want to punch him in the face and Cooper is convincing enough to almost turn you off watching this smug man run roughshod over the feelings of others.
Through the film’s plot arc we see the character grow up a little though, so by the end of the story we understand him just a bit better.
The film starts with Jones finishing a self-imposed exile of shucking oysters, after a stint at a Paris restaurant ended in debt, tears, profanity and ill-wishes.
He sets off for London and via several slow- food market visits, Jones blackmails old friend Tony (Bruhl) into letting him take over as chef at The Langham (yes, this is a real place with quite the haute cuisine reputation).
Jones gathers a group of staffers who are the best in the business, coming to rely on Miller’s sous-chef Helene’s food skills and superior people skills. (Miller has more to do here than she did in the first film she co-starred in with Cooper, American Sniper. Still, the Helene character is but a foil for the Jones’s character’s bad behaviour and eventually a love interest).
Thompson pops up as an analyst dispensing pragmatic advice, though she seems to be present more for the value of having an Oscar winner in the film than out of necessary plot furtherance. Her lines could have been delivered through any other character with as much effect. So, too, Tony’s crush on Adam and the appearance of an old flame, Alicia Vikander, but this film is all about the food.
Jones is an old-school haute cuisine chef with the manners to match, but his goal is perfection: “I don’t want my restaurant to be a place where people sit and eat. I want people to sit at that table and be sick with longing,” he says with utter conviction.
Much of the film’s emotional arc lies in the narration provided by Cooper, it doesn’t necessarily lie in the images unfolding before you. What the images do provide you with is the bustle and craziness of the kitchen and the growing camaraderie of Jones’s workplace. As he starts to trust the people he works with Jones yells even more – we’re talking full-on hissy fits with flying cutlery and breaking crockery.
We get lots of mouth-watering shots of cooking – lots more butter than Chef, and less chopping – but the money shots are the close-ups of the haute cuisine dishes. The kitchen rituals of plating and presentation – which reach their ironic culmination when Jones marches a birthday cake out to a patron – are minutely observed and even the simplest scrambled egg becomes a ceremony of meticulous attention meets yumminess.
If you’re after more food porn, go feast on Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Chocolat, Chef, Like Water for Chocolate, Julie and Julia and yes, Babette’s Feast is still mouth-wateringly good.