While internally debating my next viewing choice, I was drawn to this, a drama starring the fine Juliette Binoche that would also apparently make me very hungry while watching it. I love films that can strongly affect more than just your sight and hearing, and I hoped to be salivating as I watched this recipe being cooked into filmic perfection.
Binoche plays Eugénie, a cook who seems to be one of the very best. She has certainly impressed her fellow chef, Dodin (Benoît Magimel), who loves Eugénie and her cooking in almost equal measure. Eventually proposing to become more than just two people sharing cooking knowledge and kitchen space, Dodin has to be patient while Eugénie gently rebuffs him, wanting to maintain all of her focus on the cooking that she treats as an almost religious experience. The one main addition to the kitchen is Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), a young girl who has some natural talent and a real willingness to learn. Dodin continues to hold a candle for Eugénie, but will she ever want to view him as anything other than a cooking colleague?
Based on a novel by Marcel Rouff, this is written and directed by Trần Anh Hùng, a film-maker who has already built up a small filmography of some acclaim. I have only seen one other film from them so far, Norwegian Wood (2010), but I see a lot that I like in their delicate and unrushed handling of material that explores human nature in the mix of some enjoyable onscreen characters.
As expected, Binoche is as wonderful here as ever. She always seems convincingly enthralled by the skill and care required to get the best out of every ingredient going into the dishes she is preparing, and her character manages to convey that sensation to others while managing to avoid seeming egotistical. Her meals are the best because everything she does is in service of the meal. Magimel is also very good, and it's easy for viewers to believe that he could fall so much in love with Binoche after spending so much time in close proximity to her work and her aura. Others appear onscreen, many discussing culinary highs and lows that they've experienced over the years, but Chagneau-Ravoire is the perfect complementary ingredient to the main course, allowing viewers to see the kind of innocence and real interest that Eugénie sees as possibly leading to a life-long vocation/passion.
I wish there had been a few more grand meals shown (sadly, I did not salivate), and the whole thing is actually a fairly slim premise to be dragged out to 135 minutes, but this was a sweet and effective melodrama. The leads are wonderful, the cinematography is lush, and it's another fine example of how careful and tender Hùng is when it comes to allowing us a peek into the lives of some fictional characters.
7/10
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