Review: « La Cocina. Appetite on life »

When Arnold Wesker came to Gothenburg City Theater in 2003 to see a set of his fifties classic « Kitchen », he was pissed. The British working class drama thought that director Linus Tunström had taken far too great freedoms.

One wonders what the legendary play writer had liked about the sea -filled filmization « La Cocina. Appetite for life »? Mexico -bred Alonso Ruizpalacios has placed the story in a chaotic restaurant kitchen at Times Square in New York. « The Grill » is a real tourist trap for the Lantis who have come to start the big city. A tavern that snobs with living lobsters in an aquarium in the dining room, but which behind the scenes walk around on a lousy paid migrants in the windowless kitchen factory.

It frustrated Chef Pedro (shitty Raúl Briones) is in love with the pregnant, American waitress Julia (certainly embodied by Rooney Mara from, among others, « The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo » and « Carol »). The two have – a little clumsy – hot meetings in the cold room among frozen pieces of meat. He is a dreamer who fantasizes that they should go to his homeland Mexico and live beach life. Julia is more grounded, grabs the problems and listens to the tires skeptically.

But at the same time they are such a sexy and charismatic couple. It is easy to be swept into Pedro’s fantasies about a life beyond the cuisine’s cynical power hierarchies and lying managers who attract with « Green Card » to keep the staff calm.

When money disappears from the cash register, the same amount as Julia needs for an abortion, the already driven voltage in the kitchen increases. The restaurant’s heavily regulated, hierarchical world explodes in a chaos of accusations.

Behind it a little Beautiful title « La Cocina. Appetite on Life » hides a frenetic, screwed and sometimes razor -sharp class drama in black and white. An as visual as verbal attack on the viewers who rather give violent stress than lust. A well -aimed boot against a restaurant culture that serves highly priced but industrially produced crap food.

Although the film is quite loosely based on Wesker’s play, there are some well -the -theatrical moments. But Ruizpalacios has nevertheless managed to make drama to his own. The story moves somewhere before the entrance to the mobile phone, but the depiction of a precariat handed over to arbitrary agreements makes the present feel close.

Of all the hectic kitchen depictions in recent years-the movie « Boiling Point » and the TV series « The Bear »-« La Cocina » takes the award in mattus, anxious conflicts over the pots. Do you ever want to go out and eat again? Doubtful. But I would love to see about the movie, even if it is too long and overloaded with symbolism. The sharp -minded and flipped word wars between the kitchen slaves in « The Grill », the hot choreographed love scenes and the water -sick, surreal resolution took me by storm.

See more. Three other films that play out in restaurant kitchens: « Love on the menu « (2007), » Burnt « (2015) and » The Menu « (2022).

Also read:

Rooney Mara: « In the end, everything hangs on the director »

More Film and TV reviews in DN And other texts By Helena Lindblad