Rather like John Turturro in Fading Gigolo earlier this year, Jon Favreau the writer, director, star of Chef has been criticised for pairing himself with women that would in reality be out of his league. In this case, it is Sofia Vergara as his ex-wife Inez, and Scarlett Johansson as his girlfriend. That’s an easy stick to beat the film with, is largely irrelevant, and may have prevented this film from getting the praise it deserves.
Favreau plays Carl Casper, an accomplished chef in a fancy restaurant. He’s bored with cooking the same menu every day but his boss (Dustin Hoffman) will not let him change it. After a scathing review from an online critic (Oliver Platt) and an embarrassing confrontation with him, Carl quits his job. Unsure what to do next, he takes his ex-wife’s advice to open a food truck, which he has to drive from Miami to his home in Los Angeles.
As you would expect, the scenes of creating and serving food are mouth watering and convincingly shown and there is also some very amusing exchanges with the workers in his kitchen (Bobby Cannavale and the excellent John Leguizamo). What I wasn’t expecting was the realistic and moving the depiction of Carl reconnecting with his son (Emjay Anthony). Anthony has a lot of promise, with his depiction of a child that isn’t too smart or too stroppy, unlike the portrayal of them in most American films!
Whilst the story is otherwise predictable, the film breezes along in a very agreeable way. However, there are some things that I struggled with. Johansson’s character disappears half way through the film, without any comment, seemingly only to enable the chance of a reconciliation between Carl and Inez. Also once Carl has his food truck it’s hard to believe how successful he becomes in just a matter of days. The biggest problem is the obsession with Twitter which becomes annoying at times. I haven’t seen such an obvious example of product placement in a long while, and it will really date the film in years to come.
If you can get past those concerns, the road movie part of the film is particularly fun, as is a brief cameo from Robert Downey Jr.
Rating: 7 out of 10